Yankees 0, Royals 5: Lugo freezes the lineup

09/10/2024 09:54 PM

The Yankees went down quickly against the Royals' ace.

The best thing we can say about this game is that it was quick. It took Seth Lugo and the Royals a little less than two and a half hours — would have been even shorter without "God Bless America" — to dismantle a Yankee lineup that put up 10 runs the night before. Seven shutout innings lowered Lugo's sterling 3.05 pregame ERA and paced Kansas City to a 5-0 win on Tuesday night.

Marcus Stroman was pretty impressive in his first two innings, working around a single and catcher's interference in the first with two strikeouts, and engineering a nice double play to erase a leadoff single in the second. In particularly, being able to break pitches down and away should have given us some hints that his bowling ball sinker might play up against that kind of movement:

As often happens with Stroman though, he's tied to what his batted balls do. In the third inning, Bobby Witt Jr. brought in Kyle Isbel on a grounder to left field, before Sal Perez continued his reign of terror in this series:

Jasson Domínguez got a really nice ricochet off the wall and was able to nab Perez at second base — after replay overturned the initial "safe" call — but the run scored nevertheless. Stroman allowed a third run on another Perez hit two innings later.

Mark Leiter Jr. took over for Stro after 5.1 innings, and while he closed out the sixth, he served up some chum to Tommy Pham in the seventh:

Leiter comes with two more years of control after this, so the trade can't really be evaluated until then ... but it doesn't look like a great acquisition at this point, to say the least.

Tim Mayza also gave up a run, but as much as I want to be disgruntled by the pitching, you're not gonna win very often when you strike out 10 times, walk none, and manage just three hits against your opponent's starter. The 5-9 hitters in the Yankee order didn't reach base once against Lugo, who slashed through the lineup throwing 105 pitches over seven innings.

Gleyber Torres knocked two hits, raising that .318 average in the leadoff spot over the last 22 games. The first of those two hits led off the bottom of the first, before both Juan Soto and Aaron Judge struck out, and Austin Wells bounced out to close off the threat. Torres singled again in the sixth, only for Soto to fly out. For what it's worth, Soto's OPS is now below that 1.000 benchmark he'd been clear of almost all year.

At the end of the day, it was the same story we've seen for three weeks. The terror twins have gone cold and the bottom of the lineup wasn't enough to cover for them. The Yankees lose to a team that, while they're in a playoff position, shouldn't be a real rival. Meanwhile, while I write this, the Orioles lead the Red Sox 5-3 in the eighth. Should that score hold, New York will lose that little bit of breathing room in the AL East they scraped out last night and be only a half-game ahead.

This is a winnable series and almost a must-win one. Luis Gil will be tasked with delivering that victory tomorrow night, with a 7:05pm ET start time. He's coming off a great start against the Cubs, and will look to keep that going against Lugo's fellow All-Star in the Kansas City rotation, Cole Ragans. Please note tomorrow's rubber match is on Amazon.

Box Score