The New York Yankees extended their losing streak to five games Tuesday night, falling 2-0 to the Texas Rangers despite the return of Aaron Judge to the lineup. Judge, who had been sidelined for 10 games with an elbow injury, went hitless in three at-bats against Rangers starter Nathan Eovaldi.
“We’ve got some work to do,” Judge said after the game. “A lot of things to clean up. But the boys in here are fired up to change all that and get things right. We’ve got a great ballclub in here, so … it’s just a lot of mistakes all around, some mental mistakes and physical mistakes. But we’ve got to fix them. We’ve got to fix them now.”
Eovaldi dominated the Yankees’ offense, allowing only one hit over eight innings and striking out six batters. He retired 24 of 25 hitters faced, yielding only a third-inning double by Anthony Volpe.
“We’ve faced him a lot over the years — we’ve had some success, but he’s had a lot of nights where he’s really pitched well against us,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “This was right up there. We were getting it in play some, but really not a lot of hard contact at all. … he was in command. We just didn’t mount much at all.”
Judge struggled in his first game back from injury, striking out twice and grounding out once on pitches outside the strike zone.
“He’s coming off the IL, so I want to make sure that I’m attacking him as quick as I can,” Eovaldi said. “I didn’t want to fall behind in any of those counts when facing him because he’s an extremely talented hitter, and he can hit one out of the park at any time.”
After Volpe’s double early in the game, Eovaldi retired 16 straight Yankee hitters.
“You’ve really got to be disciplined when you’re facing a guy like that,” Judge said. “He made some tough pitches against us.”
Judge served as designated hitter Tuesday due to his recovery from injury and is expected to start a throwing program soon with hopes of returning to fielding duties during the team’s upcoming homestand.
Meanwhile, bullpen struggles continued for New York as relievers have taken losses in three of their last five games. Closer Devin Williams allowed two runs in the eighth inning Tuesday following his blown save on Monday night.
“He got a glove on it — you know, obviously it’s hit hard, it’s a tough play,” Boone said about left fielder Jasson Domínguez’s attempt at catching Adolis García’s leadoff double in the eighth inning. “I felt like he didn’t get a great jump on it … tough play over his head, though.”
Williams also walked two batters before Rowdy Tellez drove both home with a single.
“It takes one at-bat, takes one pitch — that’s the beauty of this game, and also the scary thing about this game,” Judge said.
