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Phillies squander late lead, let one slip away on rainy day in New York originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

NEW YORK – There were no late-inning heroics, no furious comebacks, no eye-popping defensive plays for the Phillies on Saturday.

Their four-game winning streak, built on much of the above, came to an end in a 6-2 loss to the New York Mets at Citi Field.

It all fell apart in the sixth inning when the Mets capitalized on some shaky Phillies’ defense, sent nine men to plate and scored four times to erase a 2-0 deficit.

Bryce Harper was in the middle of it all most of the day.

He clubbed a two-run homer in the top of the third inning to put the Phils ahead.

Alan Rangel, filling the fifth spot in the starting rotation as a bulk reliever, entered the game in the second inning and did a creditable job protecting the lead through five.

In the bottom of the sixth inning, Rangel allowed two one-out singles – one was a soft liner to right that may have been catchable had Gabriel Rincones been more aggressive — before Francisco Lindor smashed a ball past Harper at first base. Harper dived for the 102.4 mph bullet, but it got by him and rolled all the way into the right-field corner for a two-run, game-tying triple.

Before the inning was over, Jonathan Bowlan replaced Rangel and gave up a two-run single up the middle through a drawn-in infield to make it 4-2.

The Mets padded their lead with two more runs against lefty reliever Kyle Backhus in the seventh.

The bottom of the sixth was the decisive frame and it spotlighted a Phillies weakness – defense. It’s not so much the errors with this team. It’s the plays that go unmade, plays that a sharp team makes. The Phils entered the day with a rating of minus-20 Outs Above Average, according to Statcast. That ranked 29^th in the majors.

Had Rincones made a play on Juan Soto’s soft liner to right and Harper made a play on Lindor’s hard-hit ball – it went under his out-stretched glove – the Phillies could have gotten out of the inning unscathed.

Manager Don Mattingly wasn’t immediately sure if Rincones could have caught Soto’s ball.

“I haven’t really looked at it yet,” he said. “They’ll have the report, it’ll come out tomorrow, probabilities and things like that.”

As for Lindor’s hot smash past Harper:

“You always have a chance (to make a play),” Mattingly said. “It was over 100 (mph), scorched pretty good and it had a little hook to it. It’s getting by you pretty quick.”

To his credit, Harper said he should have made the play.

“I felt like he top-spun it,” Harper said. “I thought it was going to bounce up and it just kind of got under my glove. Yeah, I was pretty upset about that play. Obviously, it’s a play I think I should have made, but it didn’t happen.”

Independent of the two plays in the sixth inning, Mattingly was asked what he thinks of the team’s defense in the two months he’s been on the job.

“There’s times I like it and times that I don’t feel as good about it,” he said. “That’s kind of day to day. In general, it’s been OK. I like to see us, obviously, always continue to tighten everything up and get better, where we get the outs that we’re supposed to get and not give those guys extra chances.”

Harper’s eventful sixth inning included his being caught trying to stretch a single into a double with no outs.

“I saw the center fielder fall down and thought I could make it,” he said. “It just didn’t happen.”

Despite losing the lead in the lead in the sixth, Rangel gave the Phils some good work in his second outing since being summoned from Triple A to fill the fifth rotation spot. He pitched five innings of one-run ball earlier in the week in Washington and was rolling along until the sixth inning Saturday. With a sharper defense, he might have gotten a win.

“I thought he was good,” Mattingly said. “He had them off balance. Up until the Lindor ball, nothing was scorched.”

Jesus Luzardo will get the ball as the Phillies look to bounce back and win the series on Sunday afternoon. The Mets will use an opener, lefty Cionel Perez.

After a nice, solid drubbing of the Houston Astros on Friday night which evened the four-game series at a game apiece, the Detroit Tigers looked to clinch at least a series tie on Saturday afternoon. Despite a lovely grand slam early in the game, the Tiger bullpen couldn’t hold onto this one as the Astros prevailed 8-6.

Framber Valdez’s seventeenth start for the Tigers aimed to build upon two solid, six-inning, one-run outings in a row. Regardless of the start, though, walks have been a problem for him: coming into today he’d walked at least two batters in every start since the middle of May. As the late Jim Price used to bemoan on the radio broadcasts, “Oh, those bases on balls!”

Facing the Tigers today was Kai-Wei Teng, making his tenth start of the season to go along with thirteen relief appearances. He’s found a home in Houston’s rotation after having limited success in San Francisco the past two years. That’s not to say it’s been all sunshine-and-roses lately; to wit, two starts ago he faced these very same Tigers in Houston and didn’t make it through the fourth inning, having given up five runs and a trio of taters. One of those was to Colt Keith, amongst the three he hit that lovely day.

The Astros struck first: in the bottom of the second Christian Walker led off with a double; Kerry Carpenter took a strange route to it and might’ve had a play on it in some parallel universe. That cost the Tigers a run as Cam Smith immediately followed with a sizzling line drive home run to left field.

Meanwhile, the Tigers were getting pretty good swings against Teng, but the line drives seemed to be finding gloves at an annoying rate.

Houston kept coming in the third, with some singles and a double resulting in another run; one of the singles should’ve been an error on Spencer Torkelson making the run unearned, but that’s baseball, I guess.

In the bottom of the inning a walk and a grounder off Jose Altuve’s glove put the first two runners on. After Isaac Paredes made a good play on a foul popup from Riley Greene, Teng hit Torkelson to load the bases and bring Kerry Carpenter to the plate. Teng hung a curveball, Carpenter swung, and the batter absolutely did not miss.

The Astros evened the score in the top of the fourth with a pair of singles, a productive groundout, and another single.

In the bottom of the inning Jake Rogers legged-out an infield single, and with two out Greene singled to right. Torkelson followed with a double that scored Rogers and pushed Greene up to third for a 5-4 lead. That was the end of Teng’s day, and lefty Steven Okert was summoned. Carpenter was due up next… and somehow he was not pulled for a pinch-hitter! Alas, he meekly hit a ground ball to first for the third out — as Jahmai Jones forlonly cried a single tear while sitting on the dugout bench.

With one out in the fifth, Hao-Yu Lee hit a fly ball just above the left fielder’s outstretched glove for his third home run on the year, making it a 6-4 game.

Valdez actually settled down quite nicely from the end of the fourth through the sixth, setting down seven in a row. He was done after six innings — his third straight start of that length — but his final line was lousy: 6 IP, 8 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 2 K. Tellingly, his settling-down coincided with a whole bunch of Astros hitting ground balls; if he’d only been able to do that earlier in the game, well then, now you’ve got something.

Drew Anderson took over in the seventh, and with two out he walked Paredes and gave up a soft single to Altuve for a bit of a jam, bringing up Walker who hit a line drive single to left, scoring Paredes and narrowing the lead to 6-5. That’d be it for Anderson, and it was a Drew-for-Drew swap on the mound as Somers inherited a two-on, two-out pickle. The lefty faced fellow lefty, pinch hitter Joey Loperfido, and coaxed a soft fly ball from him for the third out.

Will Vest replaced Drew #2 in the eighth, and it didn’t go particularly well. Yainer Díaz led off with a single, and with two outs Christian Vásquez singled as well to put runners on first and second. Jeremy Peña singled weakly to centre, scoring Diaz to tíe the game; the ball was misplayed by James Outman in centrefield, letting the runners advance a base. Paredes followed with a big, two-run, opposite-field double to un-tie the game and put Houston ahead 8-6. With Vest struggling to locate anything it’s hard to tell how much was on Jake Rogers but the pitch selection didn’t make a lot of sense in that series of at-bats. Getting ahead of a light-hitting catcher 1-2 and giving him a pitch in the zone that he could just drop the bat on being the most annoying one. Maybe try expanding the zone or going up where Vasquez is likely to lift a weak fly ball? Still, with Vest’s command a complete mystery bag maybe there were no right answers.

After three quick outs, Jacob Waugespack replaced Vest for the ninth. A single and a sacrifice bunt put a runner on second with one out, and after a groundout a walk put two runners on. But a harmless groundout to shortstop ended the threat and sent the game into the bottom of the ninth.

Josh Hader, who’s back from the Injured List and in top form, got the Tigers 1-2-3 in the ninth, as he has done throughout his career against so many teams. The series finale is at 1:40 pm EDT on Sunday.

Final score: Astros 8, Tigers 6

Numbers and Observances

• I don’t put a huge amount of stock in pitcher wins and losses anymore, but Jack Flaherty leads the American League in losses with eight.
• Carpenter’s at-bat against a left-handed pitcher in the fourth inning was his sixteenth against a lefty all season. At that point he’d had 172 against right-handed pitchers.
• On this day in 1895, an electric locomotive was used for a passenger train, the first such occurrence in the United States. (It was between Washington and New York on the B&O Railroad, which should sound familiar if you’ve played Monopoly.) Go to any European country and ride their trains, and then come back to North America and wonder why we can’t have nice things like that.

BOSTON — Contrary to popular belief, those were not toothpicks the Yankees were swinging Saturday. 

But they essentially would have served the same purpose as the lumber they did use, which has been ineffective the past few days. 

Once again, the Yankees got shut down by a lefty, with their bats going silent and offensive woes growing louder in a third straight loss to the last-place Red Sox, this time 4-1 on a fine afternoon at a sold-out Fenway Park. 

For a second straight game, Jake Bennett and the Red Sox bullpen held the Yankees (48-34) to just three hits while Gerrit Cole got hit around, resulting in their seventh loss in the past 10 games. 

“With the way it’s going, we all expect to be better,” Cody Bellinger said. “They’ve been playing well. We’ve got to show up [Sunday] and take a game here.” 

A lineup that had been finding ways to win without the back-to-back AL MVP suddenly looks like it dearly misses Aaron Judge, not to mention Giancarlo Stanton and Trent Grisham, who are also on the injured list. Grisham should return within the week, but Judge and Stanton do not appear anywhere close to coming back, so the Yankees will have to figure out how to snap out of this funk without them. 

More immediately, they will try to avoid a four-game sweep by the Red Sox (35-46) on Sunday night. They will do so against righty Sonny Gray after faltering against three straight lefties in Connelly Early (six innings, two runs), Payton Tolle (seven innings, one run) and Bennett (6 ¹/₃ innings, one run). 

“Today I felt like we had some hard contact going, but kind of chasing uphill and a couple chances to get a big hit and weren’t able to do it,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’ve got to find a way right now. It’s been obviously a rough weekend for us. But a chance to win one [Sunday].” 

Cole got hit hard for a second straight start, giving up four runs on seven hits, including a pair of solo home runs to Masataka Yoshida (to lead off the bottom of the first) and former Yankees first-round pick Anthony Seigler (in the bottom of the second). 

But the bigger culprit was the offense. 

After Tolle took a perfect game into the sixth inning against the Yankees on Friday night, Bennett had a no-hitter into the fifth Saturday before Max Schuemann broke it up with a solo home run, which was ultimately the only thing standing between them and a shutout. 

Over the first three games of this four-game set, the Yankees have gone just 14-for-94 (.149) with eight walks. 

Some of their most dependable batters have contributed to the recent malaise. Ben Rice went 0-for-4 Saturday and is now 2-for-23 over his past six games. Bellinger went 1-for-2 with two walks, improving him to 2-for-19 over his past six games. Amed Rosario, who had been a reliable lefty killer early on, is now 7-for-42 over his past 15 games. 

The Yankees started the season 18-6 against lefty starters but have now dropped six of their past seven — including all three games of this series so far. 

“I think [Bennett] took the momentum from the last couple lefties that they threw,” Schuemann said. “They’ve all done a good job. … Just pounding the strike zone and having the confidence to pound the strike zone. We try to put good swings together, good at-bats together, it just hasn’t gone our way.” 

The only real threat of a rally the Yankees had all day came in the seventh inning, when Rosario and Bellinger led off with back-to-back singles. But Bennett responded by striking out Jasson Domínguez before the Red Sox went to the bullpen for Justin Slaten, who punched out José Caballero (who challenged strike three and was proved incorrect) and pinch hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. to squash the threat. 

“Honestly, those guys are pitching really well right now,” said Austin Wells, who went 0-for-3 and is now batting .160 on the year. “Some young guys who’ve thrown well, who a lot of us don’t have a lot of experience facing before. So I think there’s a little bit of that to it.”

The thing about June is that it is just June.

The losses the Yankees have suffered at the hands of the last-place Red Sox have been equal parts dull and maddening, but they are ultimately just losses in June. Even after this 4-1 loss on Saturday afternoon, they are at worst in a tie for first place in the AL East. However, it remains remarkable how often the Yankees ship up to Boston in June and seemingly leave all their good bats behind. My colleague Michael Zeno found that this entire decade, the Bombers have gone 1-14 at Fenway in the month as opposed to 19-11 in Beantown every other page of the calendar.

Today’s defeat, like yesterday’s, felt over from the jump. Rookie starter Jake Bennett had the Yankee hitters in a blender and Gerrit Cole gave up a leadoff home run en route to another forgettable start as the Red Sox won the series. They will have to stave off an ignominious four-game sweep at the hands of their last-place archrivals tomorrow night.

The tone was set extremely early on, which is never a good thing for a struggling team. The Yankees went down in order against Bennett in the first inning, then Cole’s second pitch of the afternoon was launched into the Boston bullpen by Masataka Yoshida. The DH has not been a powerhouse this year, as that home run was just his second of the season. And Cole’s pitch wasn’t even in the strike zone. But that’s the way this series has gone.

The second inning brought more of the same. Bennett easily worked around a leadoff walk in the top half, and the Sox got another homer in the bottom half. Former Yankee prospect castoff Anthony Seigler (boy, Boston sure likes collecting those) snuck an opposite-field fly ball just over the Green Monster for a 2-0 lead. These are just solo homers, blips that Cole can usually live with when his offense is hitting. They just are not hitting this weekend.

Oh yeah, and it was Seigler’s first big-league homer. Congratulations to him, I suppose.

Regrettably for Cole, it was not just a pair of solo shots he had to contend with today. Boston put a pair of ducks on the pond in the third, which Willson Contreras was more than happy to call back to the nest. On 1-2, Cole’s fastball caught too much of the plate, and Contreras hit it where it was pitched. The ball easily split the outfielders and reached the left-center wall to plate a pair and double the Boston lead again. All this while the Yankees hadn’t managed a single hit of their own through four for the second day in a row.

The Yankees managed to end the no-hitter and shutout one swing in the top of the fifth, and it came from an unlikely source. Max Schuemann clubbed a ball out toward the triangle in left center field. The ball hit off the yellow stripe which denotes the ‘end’ of the Green Monster; essentially, if it hit to the left of that line it would have been in-play.

Schuemann’s first homer as a member of the Yankees made it a 4-1 game.

Cole departed with one out in the sixth having once again allowed a few too many big hits. It was quite reminiscent of his previous start against the Tigers: his command was not bad, per se, but he continually missed in crucial spots, and the opposing lineup was ready to take advantage every time.

Meanwhile, Boston’s good-young-southpaw-starter factory seems to have endless output. For the third straight game, the Bombers found themselves flummoxed by a lefty. Jake Bennett worked through six almost-spotless innings, the lone hit that Schuemann home run. He worked a bevy of quick 1-2-3 frames, preventing the Bombers from building any kind of early momentum. Seriously, I am formally requesting a moratorium on further precocious left-handed pitchers in the Boston organization. The bit gets old when you see it three days in a row.

The Yankees’ best opportunity to climb back into the game came in the top of the seventh when Bennett allowed a pair of singles. While the Red Sox bullpen got going, Bennett faced Jasson Domínguez, and struck him out on a changeup to grab a crucial first out. Interim manager Chad Tracy then made the move to Justin Slaten, who, it must be noted, entered action with a 6.48 ERA. Naturally, he came in and struck out José Caballero on a perfectly-located fastball at the knees (and we know it was perfect because Cabby challenged it), then got pinch-hitter Jazz Chisholm Jr. to wave over the top of a cutter to send the Yankees to the stretch emptyhanded.

The worst part about these losses is the individual who has shown up in the ninth inning to put them to bed. Aroldis Chapman started the ninth by rocketing a trio of fastballs past an overmatched Ben Rice, who suffered another oh-fer today. After Amed Rosario rolled over to shortstop, Cody Bellinger worked an admirable walk. So, like clockwork, Caballero popped out on the first pitch to make that battle meaningless. This is just what happens in June. The good news: June is almost over! The bad news: July awaits.

As ESPN was more than happy to point out ahead of the final out, at least this game and the one before were quick affairs, completed in a little over two hours.

All that is left to do is prevent the four-game sweep in Beantown. Tomorrow night, the Yankees will once again be on national TV. NBC will have the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast between Carlos Rodón and Sonny Gray. Note that first pitch is set for 7:20 PM.

Box Score

This afternoon’s ballgame marks the halfway point of the 2026 season: Game 81. Coming off a performance the Chicago White Sox haven’t seen since 1970, we also haven’t seen such an exciting and winning franchise on the South Side for five years, though at times it feels like it’s been five decades (2005 and 1983 exempt, of course).

Heading into Game 2, it was a quick, “thank you, next” for David Sandlin, who was demoted to Charlotte today. Tyler Schweitzer was recalled and will take up innings out of the bullpen, lining Noah Schultz up for his return start for Chicago next week in Baltimore.

Staying on the mound, Davis Martin (leading the American League with nine wins, if pitcher wins is a stat you still enjoy) had a much needed bounce-back performance his last time on the bump. He tossed a quality start through six innings and only allowed one run against the Detroit Tigers. He last saw these Royals back on April 10, going seven innings and allowing just two runs, but the Sox wound up losing that game. Martin looks for a similar performance but a different result this afternoon.

As for the Royals, Michael Wacha will be the opposing starting pitcher. The 34-year-old in his 14th MLB season leads the American League with 101 innings pitched, and in the interest of Sox fans, has been an early name for a potential trade deadline acquisition. Last pitching against the Good Guys back on April 11, Wacha was nearly untouchable; he went eight shutout innings and only allowed four hits.

Sticking with the same lineup as last night and hoping for just a fraction of their 22-run outburst, the Sox only make a switch at catcher, swapping in Drew Romo for Kyle Teel.

Bobby Witt Jr. transitions back to shortstop after playing as the designated hitter last night.

CHSN is producing an 80s show for today’s 3:10 p.m. CT game while ESPN 1000 as your usual radio coverage.

The Yankees suffered their third straight loss to the Red Sox, 4-1, on Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park.

Here are some takeaways...

-- Gerrit Cole's career-long struggles against the Sox continued in this one. The right-hander came into the day with a 6.53 ERA against the division rival and they jumped him right out of the gate, as a pair of homers and a Willson Contreras two-run double gave them a 4-0 lead in the first three innings.  

-- One of those homers came off the bat of 2B Anthony Seigler, it was the first off the bat of the 27-year-old former Yankee prospect who was playing in his 10th career game.

-- Cole put together his first clean frame in the fourth, then worked around a hit in the fifth. He gave up another knock in the sixth before turning things over to Bent Headrick, who escaped a jam to close his line with just the four runs allowed on seven hits and a walk over 5.1 innings. 

-- Unfortunately for Cole and the Yanks, it was much of the same for their struggling offense. After managing just one hit on Friday, Jake Bennett held them without a hit for the first five innings in this one, before Max Schuemann lifted his first homer of the season to dead-center.  

-- New York was able to bring the tying run to the plate after back-to-back singles from Amed Rosario and Cody Bellinger leading off the top of the seventh, but Bennett and a relieving Justin Slaten struck out the next three batters in order to strand the pair and end the threat.  

-- Both teams combined to throw just 11 pitches in a six-up, six-down eighth inning. 

-- Ben Rice was blown away by a 100 mph Aroldis Chapman fastball leading off the ninth, snapping a stretch of eight consecutive groundouts. The slugging infielder finished the day 0-for-4 and now has just four hits in his last 25 at-bats over his last seven games. 

-- Bellinger worked a terrific 11-pitch at-bat with two outs to keep this one alive, but Jasson Dominguez popped out on the very next pitch to close out the third consecutive loss. New York managed just three hits and three walks, and they've scored just five runs over the first three games of this series. 

-- Game time was 2:22, just one minute longer than Friday's contest (2:21).

Game MVP: Jake Bennett

The righty kept the struggling Yanks offense in check across 6.1 strong innings

What's next

The Yanks look to get things going in the series finale on Sunday Night Baseball. 

Carlos Rodon faces off with former Yankee Sonny Gray in the nationally televised matchup. 

Well, it’s time for Royals baseball. Again.

Listen, I’m not going to get into much about yesterday’s game. But I will say this: this isn’t rock bottom. Two teams–the Giants and the Rockies–still have worse records than the Royals while the Angels, who just made a front office change, have the same 34-49 record. Only Colorado (-91) has a worse run differential and the Royals (-70).

Despite being outscored 35-3 the past two days, things could always get worse.

Alright, enough about that. Time to flip the page. The Royals still have two games left against the White Sox this series. They could still win the series!

Hey, want more positivity? The last time the White Sox scored at least 20 runs in a game was on June 20, 2006, so a little over twenty years ago. The opponent: the St. Louis Cardinals.

Guess who won the World Series that season? THAT’S RIGHT, THE ST. LOUIS CARDINALS. Connect the dots, people!

Time for the lineups:

Kansas City sends out to the mound this afternoon it’s best starting pitcher of the year–and best trade chip? Another conversation for a different time. But yes, Michael Wacha looks to staunch the bleeding and prevent Tyler Tolbert from pitching a third consecutive day.

Lineup looks fine. Hey, Bobby Witt Jr. is back in the field! He bats second while returning to short. John Rave gets the call in right today. He supplants Josh Rojas in the lineup. Carter Jensen leads off as the DH while Salvador Perez moves from first to behind the dish.

They’ll face White Sox starting pitcher Davis Martin, a righty making his 16th start of the season. He’s tied for the league lead in wins with nine while holding a good-looking 3.18 ERA and an even more sparkling FIP, 2.93. In his last outing, Davis received no decision despite giving up just one earned over six in Detroit. The Yankees roughed him up before that, torching him for nine earned runs, including three homers, in just over three innings.

The Royals should emulate the Yankees and do that.

Pretty similar look to the lineup that tied a franchise record for runs in a game with 22 except Drew Romo is behind the plate over Kyle Teel.

Methinks the White Sox will score fewer than 22 today, but then again, I thought things couldn’t get worse after Thursday morning’s shellacking. Silly me.