Reds 10, Yankees 2. Most lopsided loss of the 2026 season, and it turned on one ball that Ben Rice couldn't catch.
Paul Goldschmidt tagged Andrew Abbott for a solo shot to right center in the bottom of the first -- 396 feet, his 12th of the year -- and for maybe two innings it felt like this might be a game. Then the Reds remembered they have a 22-year-old infielder who goes 4-for-5 on a Saturday afternoon and a rookie third baseman who apparently picks the worst possible moments to go absolutely nuclear.
The Inning That Broke It
The fifth is the one you'll replay if you were watching, and probably wish you hadn't.
Arroyo grounded one to Volpe at shortstop. Routine play, short hop, flip to first. Volpe's throw was catchable -- and Rice couldn't handle it. Error on Rice. Arroyo safe. Inning extended.
Sal Stewart lifted a sacrifice fly to left. Blake Dunn scored. Reds 3, Yankees 1.
Then Spencer Steer, who'd been 2-for-40 in his last 43 at-bats (so historically bad it's almost impressive), sat on a 2-1 sinker from Will Warren and hit it 407 feet to left center. JJ Bleday and Nathaniel Lowe scored ahead of him. Reds 6, Yankees 1.
Four runs in the inning. All four unearned. The error didn't lose this game by itself, but it handed Cincinnati four runs they hadn't earned and a cushion Andrew Abbott didn't need but was absolutely going to use.
Sal Stewart's Saturday
Stewart gave the Reds the lead in the third when he lined a two-run double to left, scoring Arroyo and Dunn and flipping it from 1-0 New York to 2-1 Cincinnati. He tacked on the sac fly in the fifth. Then, in the eighth, with the game already decided, he stepped back in and lined a bases-clearing double to center -- Trevino, Arroyo, and Dunn all scored -- to push it to 9-1.
Six RBI. Tied his career high. He's 22 years old and the Reds are still doing this without Elly De La Cruz, who started a minor league rehab assignment Friday.
Worth mentioning: Arroyo went 4-for-5 and reached base five times. The Reds had 15 hits total. This wasn't fluky -- they just hit the ball everywhere all afternoon.
Warren and the RISP Numbers
Credit Warren where it's due: he struck out eight and gave up just two earned runs across 5.2 innings. Mechanically, that's not a bad start. The box score -- 6 runs allowed, loss (7-2) -- doesn't tell the whole story, because four of those runs shouldn't have scored.
The other side of the ledger is the Yankees going 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position. Thirteen at-bats. Zero runs. In a game where they needed to stay close and couldn't, that number is the story.
Abbott was fine -- more than fine, honestly. Five innings, five hits, one run, six strikeouts. He's been at least five innings deep in each of his last ten starts, holding opponents to three or fewer earned runs every time. The Yankees had some chances early and left them on base, which is more on them than on him.
The Yarbrough Situation
Ryan Yarbrough came out to pitch the eighth with the game at 6-1. He surrendered five hits and four runs before recording his three outs. (Three of those four runs belonged to Stewart's bases-clearing double -- Trevino, Arroyo, and Dunn all scored. Dane Myers knocked in the fourth with a double of his own.)
That's the kind of thing that happens when you're five runs down and your offense has gone silent with men on base. At some point the whole afternoon just unravels.
The Goldschmidt Context
The first-inning homer was genuinely nice -- Goldschmidt has been carrying a lot of offensive weight since Aaron Judge went down with a fractured right rib. The Yankees are 10-6 without Judge, and today was the sixth loss. He's hitting, he's producing, and he's doing it in a lineup that needs him to be more than a middle-of-the-order option.
The club still leads the AL East by 2.5 games over Tampa Bay. That number matters, and it's not going anywhere after one blowout loss.
Sunday
Chase Burns starts for Cincinnati -- 8-1, 2.01 ERA. Gerrit Cole gets the ball for the Yankees -- 2-1, 2.57.
That's a better rubber-game matchup than this series deserved. Get there early.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
