Yankees 4, Twins 11, and on a Fourth of July matinee that drew 40,156 to Yankee Stadium, the loudest fireworks came from the wrong dugout. The New York Yankees dropped the middle game of this series to Minnesota, undone by six home runs from the visitors and a sixth-inning rally that died with the bases loaded.
Minnesota hit six homers Saturday. The Yankees hit two. Do that math enough times and you get an 11-4 final that never felt as close as the scoreboard briefly suggested, even a night after New York took the series opener 5-2.
Bases Loaded, Empty-Handed
Here's the part that'll sting on the drive home. Down 6-1 after Jasson Dominguez's solo shot in the fourth, the Yankees clawed back. Max Schuemann's two-run blast in the fifth made it 6-3, and Cody Bellinger's RBI double right after made it 6-4. Two innings later they had the bases loaded with one out -- Anthony Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr. had singled, Ryan McMahon's groundout moved them up, and Schuemann drew a walk to load them.
Amed Rosario struck out swinging. Paul Goldschmidt flied out to left.
Inning over. Rally over. By the time Josh Bell got going in the seventh, so was the game.
(You wait through 88 games for a bases-loaded, one-out shot at tying it against a middle reliever, and that's what you get.)
Schuemann's Perfect Day
If there's a silver lining in an 11-4 loss, it's Schuemann going 2-for-2 with a homer, two walks, and two RBI -- by win probability, the best individual performance on either roster Saturday. His 418-foot shot to left-center in the fifth was the one sound the Yankees dugout actually enjoyed making all day.
He doesn't hit for that kind of power every day. When he does, somebody should notice.
Cooked From the Jump
Brendan Beck got the call from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre that morning and made his first trip back to the Bronx a rough one: 3.2 innings, 5 earned runs, three home runs allowed (Clemens, Keaschall, Jackson) before Aaron Boone had seen enough. Tim Hill came in and served up a fourth homer to Larnach right after, and it was 6-0 before New York had even reached the fourth inning.
Give the kid this much, he battled traffic for four innings on a holiday crowd's dime, and Minnesota's own starter wasn't exactly locked in either -- Zebby Matthews needed 79 pitches to get through 4.2 innings, walking four and giving up two homers himself. Neither team's starter made it out of the fifth.
It just didn't matter once Bell got going. Bell went deep twice -- a 399-foot blast in the seventh, a 376-foot follow-up in the eighth -- and finished 3-for-5 with three RBI. His second homer came in an eighth inning that opened with a Chisholm fielding error and closed with four more runs across, all of them unearned, and Camilo Doval wore every one of them.
Six homers for Minnesota: Clemens, Keaschall, Jackson, Larnach, and Bell twice. That's a lineup that never stopped hunting mistakes.
Boone's Bullpen Math
Leaving Beck out there through traffic in the second and third, instead of going to the pen early with an emergency starter, is a defensible call on paper (the bullpen wasn't exactly fresh either, and somebody has to eat those innings in July). It still cost three homers before the lineup turned over twice, and by the time Doval walked out for the eighth with a three-run cushion, one Chisholm error was all it took to blow the doors off.
The loss drops the Yankees to 49-39, still second in the AL East at 4.5 back, and evens this series at a game apiece heading into Sunday's rubber match. Find five cleaner innings from whoever starts that one, and this series ends the way it should.
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.
