Pain in the Bronx: Yankees’ pitching staff implodes again in loss to Mets

New York—The Yankees' collapse continues as they dropped their sixth straight game in a 12-6 loss to the Mets. Carlos Rodon got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against former Yankee Frankie Montas for the Mets. 

Montas retired the Yankees in order in the top of the first inning on just nine pitches. 

Some questionable defense from Jasson Dominguez in left field allowed Starling Marte to leg out a leadoff double in the bottom of the first. Then, a couple of walks from Rodon loaded the bases with one out. Then, ahead in the count 1-2, Rodon hung a slider to Brandon Nimmo that he turned on for a grand slam to give the Mets a 4-0 lead. 

"Yeah, I mean, it's just two walks that fell behind some guys that obviously need to be in the zone and attack," Rodon said. "So giving up free base runners doesn't help, and I was ahead of Nemo there, and he makes a good swing on the slider. That slider probably needs to be down, so a lot of misses today, and they punish them." 

Jazz Chisholm Jr. launched his 15th home run of the season to cut into the Mets' lead, making it a 4-1 game. 

Jazz playing third base cost the Yankees yet again as he made a throwing error that allowed Tyrone Taylor to reach, who came around to score on an RBI single from Marte to make it a 5-1 game. 

Austin Wells led off the top of the third inning by crushing his 12th home run of the season to make it a 5-2 game. 

Rodon retired the Mets in order in the bottom of the fourth inning and picked up his third strikeout of the ballgame. 

Pete Alonso launched a two-run home run in the bottom of the fifth inning to make it a 7-2 game. 

Oswald Peraza legged out an infield single to lead off the top of the sixth, and Trent Grisham followed that up with a bloop single. A couple of batters later, Cody Bellinger drove in Peraza and Grisham with a two-run double to left center to make it a 7-4 game and extend Bellinger's hitting streak to 11 straight games. 

Scott Effross replaced Rodon on the mound in the bottom of the sixth inning and retired the Mets in order, picking up a couple of strikeouts in the process. 

Carlos Rodon's final line: five innings pitched, five hits allowed, six earned runs, three walks, nine swings and misses, and four strikeouts on 92 pitches. Rodon threw his fastball 40% of the time, the slider 33%, the sinker 14%, the changeup 10%, and the curveball 1% of the time. Rodon, unfortunately, did not have his best stuff today, as he was getting hit hard all afternoon. 

"They're a great team, they've got great guys in that lineup, but it's not that they're unpitchable... today I had a lot of misses and fell behind some guys. Today I just wasn't good enough,” Rodon said.

Anthony Volpe launched his 10th home run of the season with one out in the top of the seventh inning to make it a 7-5 game. 

Efross remained in the game for the bottom of the seventh and immediately gave up a leadoff double followed by an RBI single from Francisco Lindor to make it an 8-5 ballgame. Jayvien Sandridge took over for Efross, making his Major League debut, and immediately walked Soto, then served up a three-run home run to Alonso to make it an 11-5 game. The Yankees' pitching just seems to let down the offense anytime a game gets close right now. JT Brubaker took over for Sandridge after a disastrous MLB debut and picked up the final out of the inning. 

 Judge worked a leadoff walk in the top of the eighth inning, and a couple of batters later, Ben Rice ripped an RBI double into the right-center gap to make it an 11-6 game. 

Brubaker remained in the game for the bottom of the eighth inning and served up a double to Lindor, followed by an RBI single from Juan Soto to make it a 12-6 game. 

The Yankees went down without much of a fight in the top of the ninth inning as they dropped their sixth straight and have now lost 16 of their last 22 games, and are now three games back in the AL East. 

"You just have to play better. That's what it comes down to," Judge said. "It's fundamentals. Making the routine plays. It's just a little things, you know, it's what it kind of comes down to, but every good team goes through a couple of bumps in a row, but we can't let it, you know, falter what our ultimate goal is. We've got to keep pushing forward, and we'll clean some things up. We know what we need to do, and we will take care of business." 

The Yankees will look to avoid being swept for the second series in a row tomorrow, with Max Fried on the mound for the Yankees, the Mets starter is still TBD. The first pitch is scheduled for 1:40 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: There was a lot to unpack today before the first pitch was even thrown, with the Yankees losing Clarke Schmidt for the remainder of this season and all of 2026 to Tommy John surgery. Which, with how well Schmidt has been pitching as of late, was obviously a massive blow to this rotation. The Yankees plan to call up their top pitching prospect, Cam Schittler, to take his place. Now, a starting pitcher should be at the top of the Yankees' list of needs at the trade deadline. Now, as for the game, it's just another embarrassing performance from the pitching staff as the Yankees' collapse continues. Not much more to say about that game. This is the first time in the history of the Yankees that they have had a six-game losing streak in which they have scored five or more runs in every game. This is all on the pitchers; they have to figure it out and be better. 

"It's tough, Clarke's been really good for us. He's such a great pitcher.... It's just tough to have another arm go down, but we just roll with the punches and got to keep going," Rodon said on losing Clarke for the season.