Will Warren was cruising. Through four innings on Saturday afternoon, the Yankees right-hander had allowed one hit and struck out five. The only real damage was a two-run double from Sal Stewart in the third that gave Cincinnati a 2-1 lead. Nothing he couldn’t manage.
Then the fifth inning happened.
It started with a routine play that wasn’t. Ben Rice couldn’t handle Anthony Volpe’s low throw from shortstop with nobody on and nobody out. A simple error. But in baseball, one mistake can turn into a flood. It did.
The Reds sent nine batters to the plate. Spencer Steer crushed a three-run homer. By the time Warren got the third out, the score was 6-1 and the game was basically over. New York lost 10-2, their biggest margin of defeat this season.
Warren didn’t duck responsibility after the game. He acknowledged that the inning got away from him and admitted that if he’d kept the deficit manageable, the Bombers’ lineup might have had a chance.
“We’ve got to find a way to minimize the damage there,” Warren told reporters. “I think, with especially our offense, and the amount of runs we put up, if I can get out of there with a 4-1 game, I have full confidence, we’ll come back and win.”
Paul Goldschmidt had a different read. The veteran first baseman saw a pitcher who gave his team a chance despite the final line.
“I have no idea where his stats are, but it feels like we’ve got a chance to win every time he’s out there,” Goldschmidt said. “He goes out there, competes, he works quick, he does a good job. Even today, I know they had that homer there to kind of make the start look worse than it was. I thought he threw the ball well.”
Warren finished with 5.2 innings pitched, eight strikeouts, and only two earned runs allowed. The other three were unearned — a reminder that baseball stats don’t always tell the whole story.
The Yankees lineup couldn’t help. They left 10 runners on base and couldn’t solve Reds starter Andrew Abbott, who cruised through five innings with six strikeouts. His only mistake was a first-inning fastball that Goldschmidt hit into the right-field seats for his 12th homer of the year.
Cincinnati kept adding. Sal Stewart put the game away in the eighth with a bases-clearing triple, finishing with two hits and six RBIs. Dane Myers followed with a pinch-hit double to drive Stewart home.
Still, the Yankees have won 10 games this month despite the injuries piling up. They’re 10-3 in June with a lineup that’s still dangerous. One ugly loss doesn’t change that.
“Move on and be ready to go tomorrow,” Goldschmidt said. “We did some good things, and they played better than us. They beat us today, and we’ll be ready to go tomorrow.”
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