Yankees fall flat in embarrassing loss to MLB-worst Rockies

New York—The Rockies took down the Yankees 3-2 to pick up their ninth win of the season, to improve to 9-42 on the season. Clarke Schmidt got the start for the Yankees, and Tanner Gordon took the ball for the Rockies.

The captain, Aaron Judge, sent a single right back up the middle with one out in the top of the first inning. A couple batters later, Paul Goldschmidt just missed a home run to left center, but he picked up a RBI triple to make it 1-0 Yankees. 

Schmidt worked into and out of trouble in the bottom of the first inning, picking up two strikeouts to strand two runners on first and second. 

Schmidt picked up two more strikeouts in the bottom of the second inning to strand a runner at third base. 

Schmidt picked up two more strikeouts in the bottom of the third to quickly increase his total to six for the game. He also picked off a guy for the final out of the inning to work around a leadoff single. 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Schmidt walked the leadoff hitter, who moved up to second on a wild pitch. With two outs, Kyle Farmer tied the game at 1-1 with an RBI single. 

Judge quickly gave the Yankees the lead right back with a two-out solo home run to make it a 2-1 game, his 17th of the season. 

Schmidt quickly picked up the first two outs of the bottom of the fifth, then gave up back-to-back singles to get knocked out of this game. Tim Hill replaced Schmidt on the mound with runners at the corners and immediately gave up a two-run double to Ryan McMahon to give the Rockies a 3-2 lead. 

“I was thinking down and in,” Hill said on where he was trying to locate that pitch to McMahon. “I haven't really looked at the video yet to see if I got it there. But at the end of the day, he put a good swing on it. It's super frustrating, I wish I could have left that runner out there.”

Clarke Schmidt's final line: 4.2 innings pitched, six hits allowed, three earned runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts on 97 pitches. Schmidt threw his cutter over half the time at 59%, the knuckle curve 20%, the sweeper 15%, and the sinker 6% of the time. Schidt did not have his best stuff, but he was able to rack up the strikeouts and work around base runners all night until he ran out of gas in the fifth with two outs. 

“Yeah, it was definitely a challenge, it's really hard to throw sinkers here,” Schmidt said. “So I couldn't throw as many sinkers in as I would like, and I had to rely on the cutter more, I had to rely on the sweeper a little more. I think you have to be a little more fine and exaggerated where you throw the ball. I felt like the stuff overall was good, and I was getting to good areas,  but not being  able to use the sinker as much was crippling at times and I just didnt do my job tonight.”

Catcher Austin Wells talked about Schmidt's performance tonight. 

“I thought Clarke threw really well,” Wells said. “I think we just needed to execute a little more in later counts and put ourselves in better spots, but I thought Clarke threw the ball really well and worked with what we had.” 

Hill remained in the game for the bottom of the seventh and retired the Rockies in order.

The Yankees went down in order in the top of the seventh inning as this game is sucking the life out of me. 

Yerry De Los Santos replaced Hill on the mound in the top of the seventh and worked a scoreless inning. 

Trent Grisham led off the top of the eighth inning with a walk, but Judge bounced into a double play to kill the Yankees' chances in the eighth. 

Brentt Hendrick, who was just called back up yesterday after Fernando Cruz went on the IL, replaced De Los Santos on the mound and worked a 1-2-3 inning.

Dominguez worked a one-out walk in the top of the ninth, but that was all for the Yankees, who went down 3-2 to snap their four-game winning streak. 

The Yankees will look to bounce back tomorrow with Max Fried on the mound, facing off against Kyle Freeland. The first pitch will be at 4:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: flat out embarrassing, unacceptable loss. The Yankees better find a way to win the next two games and win the series. Nothing else to say; that game really pissed me off. Only five hits against the Rockies is pathetic.