The Yankees have lost five games in a row, again. Tonight, it was a complete collapse of the offense, despite the joy we all felt at seeing Aaron Judge’s name back in the lineup. Pair that with yet another disastrous outing by Devin Williams, and we’re still searching for rock bottom with this ballclub. I’m glad this is my first post on our new platform, as I can hopefully keep this quick and push it off to my editor as me getting used to the new layout. Yankees lose, 2-0 in Texas.
Will Warren had another interesting day. He didn’t have a single clean inning, allowing traffic in all five frames he worked. He didn’t allow a single run at all either, lowering his ERA on the season to 4.44. Three hits and three walks had him in his share of jams, but five strikeouts also helped him out huge. He’s such a strange viewing experience sometimes — his fastball generated a 38-percent whiff rate, and it looked like the Rangers were awful late despite it sitting 93.
Then again, it took him 98 pitches to face 21 batters, constantly finding himself in four and five-pitch counts. Every single time Warren goes out, you get some stuff you really like, and some stuff that portends trouble, like the fact that he can never really attack hitters. Then again, he threw five innings without allowing a run, so, it’s good?
I’m not a fan of the Joc Pederson Resurrection Tour the Yankees seem to happy to lead. After his big home run last night, Pederson reached base four times, twice against Warren. The rookie righty was able to work around his walk and double, but Joc—who entered the series with a .473 OPS—shouldn’t be leading the charge in the year of our Lord 2025.
Of course the problem with your starter only getting 15 outs is you need 12 from someone else, and the Yankee bullpen hasn’t exactly inspired a lot of confidence lately. With Jake Bird down in Triple-A Scranton, Camilo Doval was the first guy up, working the sixth with no trouble. Luke Weaver did give up a two-out double that for a moment screamed like a potential backbreaker, but had a massive strikeout of Corey Seager to keep the Rangers off the sheet:
And then, there was Devin Williams.
Look, in fairness, Jasson Domínguez had a line drive bounce out of his glove for a one-out double, a play that needs to be made by major-league outfielders. Then again, I’m not necessarily inclined to be fair to Devin Williams these days.
He walked the next two hitters, including Pederson, before Rowdy Tellez (who was cut by Seattle a month ago) finally opened the scoring.
Devin Williams has now given up more runs in 2025 than in his previous three seasons combined. While David Cone described that Tellez hit as a heartbreaker for Williams, there has to be a point where it’s not heartbreaking anymore. If I consistently let a cow in my apartment to poop on the floor, day after day, it’s not heartbreaking. It’s not backbreaking, at least in the sense Coney uses, if I purchase some other large bovid with the express intent of having it fall on me and break my back.
To add on to all this, Aaron Boone had both David Bednar and Mark Leiter Jr. warm and ready after Wyatt Langford walked to load the bases. The Yankee manager was animated in the dugout, made no move, and cost his club two runs.
You may notice I haven’t really mentioned the Yankee offense to this point, and that’s because there wasn’t anything worth mentioning. Nathan Eovaldi absolutely carved them up, spoiling any excitement we might have felt about Aaron Judge’s return. Eovaldi only struck out six in his eight shutout innings, which I could have sworn was closer to like, 17.
All in all, the club got two hits, one off the starter and one in the top of the ninth against Phil Maton, that was promptly erased by a double play. I wish there were more to say about the offense, especially given how well three out of four of the game’s pitchers did. They stunk tonight, as has happened over a period now approaching two full months.
The Yankees have had two six-game losing streaks this season. They run the risk of a third tomorrow, when the Rangers could officially pass them in the Wild Card standings and put them out of playoff position for the first time in 2025. It is hard to convince myself that good baseball teams have three six-game losing streaks in a season. Carlos Rodón will face perhaps an unfair amount of pressure to stop that from happening, getting the ball against Jack Leiter in the 2:25pm Eastern start.
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