The packed house in The Bronx on Sunday came for Derek Jeter Night, but the retired shortstop had barely left the field after his ceremony was over before the Yankees got a swift dose of reality when Masahiro Tanaka gave up three homers in the top of the first in his worst career outing.
And whatever goodwill that may have lingered after an 11-6 win in the opener and Jeter’s ceremony soon vanished in what became a 10-7 loss to the Astros in front of a sellout crowd of 47,883, many of whom showered Tanaka with boos after he was pulled by Joe Girardi.
“I didn’t get the job done,” Tanaka said through an interpreter. “They have all the right to boo me.”
Tanaka wasn’t alone. Luis Severino didn’t make it out of the third inning in the opener, and was rescued by excellent relief work and a six-run outburst by the Yankees in the seventh.
But Tanaka didn’t give his teammates much of a chance, giving up six runs in the first, capped by a grand slam by Alex Bregman, and then two more in the second. He’d never given up more than seven runs in an outing and afterwards said he felt fine.
His splitter and slider were “flat,” and Tanaka said “at times like this during the season, you’ve just got to battle through it.” Girardi called Tanaka’s split and slider “nonexistent.”
The Yankee offense, which got a three-run triple from Chase Headley to take the lead in the first game, made a run at another comeback in the nightcap.
Matt Holliday delivered a three-run homer in the fifth to make it 9-4, and the Yankees rallied in the ninth for three more runs before Didi Gregorius walked to bring up Aaron Hicks as the potential tying run. But Hicks grounded out against Houston closer Ken Giles to end it.
The lineup wasn’t the issue, as Girardi noted.
“On a day your starters only give you four innings out of 18, the bullpen did a tremendous job,” the manager said.
That included 3 ²/₃ innings of scoreless relief from Chad Green in the win and a combined four shutout innings from Chasen Shreve and Tommy Layne in defeat. But no amount of strong relief work can make up for that kind of starting pitching.
For Tanaka, it was his third consecutive shaky start after he pitched two excellent games in a row — a win over the White Sox in which he gave up just a run in seven innings, followed by a three-hit shutout against the Red Sox in Fenway Park — last month. In his last three outings — including Sunday’s — Tanaka has surrendered 16 runs (15 earned) in 15 innings.
“Our starting pitchers had a tough time in this series,” Girardi said. “But we gave ourselves a shot in the ninth.”
Now they go back on the road to last-place Kansas City on Tuesday.
“This wasn’t how we wanted this series to go, but we had a chance in three of four games,” Girardi said.