PHOENIX — Starting 6-0 could have been an excessive amount of to ask, particularly with Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen on the mound.
No offense avoids a down night time for long, however cracks have been displaying in the Yankees lineup properly earlier than New York squared up in opposition to one of the very best starters in the National League.
Even because the Yankees blazed to their finest begin in more than 30 years, at the same time as they tallied 26 runs in 5 consecutive wins to start the 2024 season, solely a third of the lineup appeared to be doing a lot. The trio of Juan Soto, Anthony Volpe, and Oswaldo Cabrera could have hit the ground operating, however everybody else wasn’t hitting a lot of something.
That continued Tuesday night time at Chase Field, as Gallen silenced the Yankees en route to a 7-0 loss, New York’s first setback after a 5-0 begin. The Yankees managed simply three hits and struck out eight occasions, six of them coming in Gallen’s six innings of work. Only one Yankees baserunner reached second, with Volpe and Cabrera lacing back-to-back two-out hits in the second. But Jose Trevino went down swinging to finish New York’s solely scoring menace of the game.
“He was just hitting spots,” first baseman Anthony Rizzo stated of Gallen. “Especially with two strikes, he wasn’t really missing over the plate at all.”
After going 0-for-4 on Tuesday, Rizzo is one of a quantity of important lineup fixtures who’ve but to get going for the Yankees. The veteran is hitting .182, whereas Giancarlo Stanton struck out thrice, giving him 11 punchouts in simply 21 plate appearances. Star slugger Aaron Judge, who continues to be discovering his rhythm after lacking time in Spring Training with an stomach situation, went 0-for-3 with a stroll and is now batting .125 in six video games.
Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone, nonetheless, doesn’t appear overly involved. Enjoying a Stanton feast inevitably requires dwelling by way of his famines. “The physical tools are still there to get it rolling,” Boone stated. “It’s just, sometimes you have to live with a little bit of ups and downs with him as he’s finding it.” As for Judge, Boone stated earlier than the game that a breakout for the star outfielder “is just a matter of time.”
Iffy calls don’t help, although. The Yankees struck out trying 5 occasions Tuesday, with Judge going down on strikes to finish the second inning on a pitch that was clearly a number of inches beneath his already large strike zone. Judge remained on the plate to focus on it at size with home plate umpire Scott Barry. Volpe was additionally rung up on a questionable call in the fifth.
“Two off the top of my head were … really pitcher-friendly calls,” Rizzo stated, pausing mid-sentence to select his phrases fastidiously. “It’s part of the game.”
The Yankees now have 54 strikeouts by way of six video games and are putting out at a 23 % clip. That’s not significantly alarming — coming into Tuesday, that will have been a league-average strikeout price — but it surely’s additionally true that the new begins from Soto and Volpe, plus the membership’s penchant for pulling off comebacks in the opening sequence in opposition to the Astros, have papered over some weaker elements of the lineup up to now.
That, plus a matchup in opposition to the third-place finisher for the National League Cy Young Award, gave Yankees starter Nestor Cortes little margin for error. For the second time in as many begins, he used it up early, permitting three runs on 5 hits in the primary inning, a body that ended solely thanks to a baserunning gaffe by Arizona rookie Jorge Barrosa. Cortes had little hassle over the subsequent 4, however a three-run cushion is a lot to afford an opposing pitcher like Gallen.
“I can’t put my team in a hole that early, that often,” Cortes stated. “We’re going to keep working and keep going back at it. Tomorrow’s another day.”