ARLINGTON, Texas – You can’t throw away a lead if you never get one.
On a day that began with Aaron Boone announcing he would vacate the closer’s role after Clay Holmes blew his 11th save in a crushing loss on Tuesday night, the Yankees never got a chance to figure out who might go first.
Marcus Stroman was passed around in an ineffective 3 ²/₃ innings, leaving the bullpen to do cleanup work instead and the Yankees lost to the Rangers 10-6 on Wednesday night at Globe Life Field.
The score was 10-2 until the ninth inning, when the Rangers helped the Yankees put lipstick on a pig.
They loaded all the bases, and Trent Grisham had two outs and he hit a grand slam off the foul post in right field.
The Yankees then sent runners to the corners and even forced Rangers closer Kirby Yates into the game to get Giancarlo Stanton to fly out to the left outfield wall, where Wyatt Langford denied him a potential three-run home run with a terrific diving catch.
The Yankees (80-60) not only lost for the sixth time in their last eight games, but also lost their third straight series heading into a Thursday off before opening weekend play against the Cubs on Friday at Wrigley Field.
After holding the best record in the major leagues at 50-22 on June 14, the Yankees are now 30-38 and entered Thursday half a game behind the Orioles for first place in the AL East with 22 games remaining.
“We have to play better than we are now,” Boone said. “We’ve lost a couple of series in a row here, we had chances to win all three. We could have had a couple here. We know we have to be better if we want to get where we want to be. Hopefully we can catch our breath a little bit, rest up a little bit on a bad day, but we have to get going at Wrigley. That’s what I expect from us. But we have to be better than this.”
In the locker room, several Yankees said they were not concerned that the club was heading in the wrong direction in the home stretch.
“We’re fighting for a division, fighting for a lot right now,” Aaron Judge said. “We just have to keep trusting each other and then everything will go according to our plan.”
Stroman added: “I think we’re all very process-oriented in this clubhouse. We all know what we’re capable of. A couple of bad losses don’t move the room at all.”
Stroman put the Yankees behind 5-0 when he retired in the fourth inning.
The right-hander has been solid (2.35 ERA) in his last four starts since being put on hold in early August to work on his technique, but his struggles were on display again Wednesday as the Yankees try to reduce their starting lineup to five and finally find their best combination for October.
Stroman now has an ERA of 4.03 in 27 starts this season.
Nathan Eovaldi, on the other hand, suppressed the Yankees’ hitting power over seven strong innings.
The only damage came from Juan Soto’s two-run home run that hit the left fielder’s foul post in the fifth inning – his 38th home run of the year – while Eovaldi otherwise played smoothly, allowing just four hits, three walks and six strikeouts.
Gleyber Torres and Soto combined to go 4-for-6 with three walks to start the lineup, but the rest of the Yankees combined to go just 1-for-26 with three walks before Grisham hit a grand slam in the ninth inning.
“We have every opportunity to achieve our hopes and dreams and that’s because of the season we’ve had overall,” Boone said. “We’ve put ourselves in a position to win this thing. But if we want to win it, we’ve got to play our best and play our best with 22 minutes to go. This team is all that matters right now. We’ve got to get it done.”
