Holmes & Boone Ruin Every Yankee Fan’s Sunday Afternoon. Miami 8 NY 7

August 14, 2023 paperbacklou 2023 0
Ben Rortvedt hits his first HR as a Yankee. "Big Ben Strikes 4!!" was John Sterling's call.

In an unmitigated disaster for the Yankees, Clay Holmes blew a 7-3 lead in the 9th inning, and manager Aaron Boone left him out there long enough to blow it.

Final score: Miami 8 NY 7 in a game that NY led 7-2 in the 8th inning and for sure were going to give Gerrit Cole a well-deserved 11th victory of the year.

Instead Holmes was wild — double, strike out, infield single, walk, and then an error by Holmes on a comebacker — throwing the ball past the 1st baseman for 2 runs and a 7-5 game. Boone stuck with him for 1 more batter — Luis Arraez — who tripled to right for a 7-7 tie; still only 1 out. Finally Boone went to the pen for Tommy Kahnle, who walked a batter and allowed a game-winning single by Jake Burger.

On a Sunday afternoon in Miami.

Until the 9th, it was a beautiful afternoon — with Gerrit Cole pitching wonderfully and the Yankee offense hitting homers and stealing bases. Gleyber Torres stole 2nd and 3rd on consecutive pitches in the 7th, then scored on a Wild Pitch on the next pitch. Anthony Volpe homered. Ben Rortvedt homered. A fun, fun afternoon. Until the 9th.

“In a perfect world, he probably lets it go, and that’s a double play to Anthony,” said manager Aaron Boone afterwards of the comebacker to Holmes that he knocked down and threw away.

The most difficult part of the aftermath was figuring out who to blame. Was it Holmes, or was it Boone for leaving him in too long? Yankee fans on Twitter were split on the subject. Even before the Arraez game-tying triple, Holmes had gotten the tough Josh Bell to hit the ‘easy’ comeback grounder.

NY falls to 60-58, 13 games behind Baltimore in dead last, 10 behind Tampa, 5 behind Toronto and a wild card, and 2 behind Boston. Miami improves to 62-57 and into a Wild Card lead.

1. Cole Should Be 12-2 2.76 Right Now

Gerrit Cole pitched great again and left with a 7-2 lead in the 7th. He threw 6 innings, allowed 6 hits, struck out 6, walked 2. He should be 11-3 2.76 right now — in fact he should be 12-2 2.76 as the Yankees blew his last start by not being able to score but 1 run.

The no decision hurts his Cy Young chances. The current race:

Just a disgusting loss from every angle.

“It was a tough one today,” said Cole afterwards. “It’s part of baseball sometimes, no matter how good you are, sometimes you just don’t have good days. Just got to flush it and get back on the process, we have a tough series coming up. As a player you have to have a short memory in this situation and prepare for Atlanta as quickly as possible.”

2. Yanks Small-Ball an Early 2-0 Lead

The Yanks got to Eury Perez, who came in with a 5-4 2.79 record, with small ball in the top of the 2nd. Harrison Bader led off with a walk, stole 2nd, and scored on an RBI single by Isiah Kiner-Falefa.

The Yanks made it 2-0 in the top of the 3rd, when Aaron Judge worked a 1-out walk, and Giancarlo Stanton ripped a clutch, 2-out RBI double to left.

3. Volpe HR Puts Yanks Up 4-1 in 4th

Cole surrendered a run in the 3rd on a 2-out RBI single by Luis Arraez — Anthony Volpe failed to make the double play on the prior at bat — the ball sticking in his glove — and it cost Cole as it would’ve ended the inning.

But Volpe made up for it in the top of the very next frame — which started with a Billy McKinney (low key red hot) leadoff single, and Anthony Volpe 404-foot homer to left center. NY 4 Miami 1.

4. Gleyber STEALS a Run

Aaron Judge led off the 5th with a walk against reliever Huascar Brazoban, and Gleyber Torres hit a grounder to 3rd that Miami could not turn the double play on — Gleyber too fast down 1st.

Gleyber then stole 2nd base.

Gleyber then stole 3rd base on the next pitch. Miami challenged, but NY won the challenge.

Gleyber then scored on a wild pitch by the rattled Brazobán on the very next pitch — a ball 4 to Giancarlo Stanton, who ran to 2nd.

It was looking like an amazing afternoon. NY 5 Miami 1.

Harrison Bader then singled Stanton to 3rd, where he scored in a Billy McKinney (low key red hot) groundout. NY 6 Miami 1.

5. Rortvedt HR Makes It 7-1 NY

Ben Rortvedt hit a 398-foot homer to right off Brazobán with 1 out in the 6th — his first as a Yankee — as John Sterling made the call on the radio, “IT IS GONE!! BIG BEN STRIKES 4 !!!”

6. Cole Gets Out of Minor Jam in 6th

Cole allowed a run in the bottom of the 6th to make it 7-2 — but Cole did well to limit damage after giving up a leadoff walk on 4 pitches to Josh Bell and then a single by Arraez. With 1st and 2nd nobody out — Cole got a strikeout, RBI single by Jake Burger, then groundout, fly out.

7. Peralta & Middleton for the 7th & 8th

In the top of the 7th, Brazobán walked 2 and struck out 2, and A.J. Puk came in to get the 3rd out on a strikeout. As John Sterling put it on the radio, “What an inning: walk, strikeout, strikeout, walk, strikeout. The ball was never hit in play.” In between all that, Gleyber Torres walked and stole 2nd base — his 3rd stolen base on the day.

Wandy Peralta pitched a 1-2-3 shutout inning in the bottom of the 7th.

In the top of the 8th, Anthony Volpe received two bad calls in a 2-1 count from A.J Puk — the 2-1 pitch was low, the 2-2 pitch was low and outside — but both were called strikes and Volpe struck out instead of walking. The ump James Hoye got umbraged at assistant hitting coach Brad Wilkerson in the Yankee dugout yelling at him, and tossed him. Hoye had an 82 percent called-strike accuracy on the day (normal is 88 percent).

Puk ended up striking out the side.

In the bottom of the 8th, Wandy allowed a leadoff walk to Josh Bell before getting an out. Keynan Middleton relieved Wandy and allowed an RBI double to Bryan De La Cruz to make it 7-3 before getting the final 2 outs.

8. Holmes & Boone Blow the 9th

And then came the bottom of the 9th. Yanks up 7-3. Clay Holmes on the mound.

  • Leadoff double by Yuli Gurriel.
  • No biggie Holmes struck out the next batter.
  • Then a little dribbler to shortstop — too soft to make a play. Infield single.
  • Holmes then went 3-2 on Jazz Chisholm. Holmes threw ball 4 but Chisholm fouled it off. A gift to the Yankees. But Holmes threw ball 4 anyway, inside.
  • Take him out? Tommy Kahnle was warming in the pen.
  • Holmes pitched to the tough Josh Bell — and got him to hit a grounder right back at him. It bounced off Holmes — he picked it up — and threw it away past 1st. Two runs scored and it was 7-5, 1st and 3rd, 1 out.

  • Take him out?
  • No — one more batter. Luis Arraez — who leads the majors in hitting at .366.
  • Holmes went to an 0-2 count.
  • And then Arraez ripped a shot just fair past 1st down the line, all the way to the wall. A triple. Tie game. There went Cole’s win.

Finally, manager Aaron Boone brought Tommy Kahnle in.

  • Kahnle walked the first batter he faced — De La Cruz — who stole 2nd to eliminate the double play.
  • And then Jake Burger ripped a single to left for the old ballgame.

Etcetera

  • Gleyber stole 2nd and 3rd in the 5th, and then stole 2nd in the 7th — giving him 3 stolen bases on the day.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401472792

 

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