Yankees 4, Reds 8: Embarrassment on the Fourth of July

I know there are people — calling into WFAN right now, making comments down below, tweeting at us — who get very, very angry when teams play like this. The Yankees are largely stinking up the joint, and people will get mad.

I can’t get there. For me, this kind of play only inspires disinterest. It is boring to watch the starting pitcher spot an opponent 2-3 runs before his team has turned the lineup over once. It’s uninteresting to see the bullpen fail to keep games close even once the lineup wakes up. It’s never uninspiring to watch Juan Soto take a pitcher into Monument Park or to see a rookie like Ben Rice swat his first career homer, but when they happen while facing a sizable deficit, they’re not as inflating as they should be.

All of this is to say, I hope your Fourth of July is more interesting, exciting and exhilarating than the Yankees’ 8-4 loss to the Reds. That residual boredom is going to make it hard to get through this recap, but dear reader, I will try my best.

For Marcus Stroman, he did not rebound from a start last week that came with its share of controversy. I don’t want to relitigate the entire saga of him calling out Gleyber Torres, but the storybook way to respond to that would be with seven shutout innings, and this wasn’t a storybook day. The onetime all-world groundball pitcher gave up three home runs, two of the solo variety and a back-breaking three-run blast from Spencer Steer in the fifth.

This continues a problematic trend for Stroman going back more than a month now. His ERA has ballooned from 2.60 on May 31st to 3.58 now, thanks to a 5.74 mark across the six starts since. Everybody in the rotation is struck by some kind of suck-tivitis, but that is cold comfort when it is your time to play dunce.

I remember watching Stroman when he was with Toronto, and like a lot of pitch-to-contact guys, he’s going to be susceptible to batted balls not finding gloves. If that were how he was beaten today, you take it on the chin and remember that those batted balls are going to find a lot of gloves. Unfortunately for Stroman, the Yankees, and everyone who had to sit through this game, THESE batted balls won’t find gloves:

I believe in Ben Rice, and I’m glad we all got to see a pretty special moment for him:

I also believe in Juan Soto, although that requires less of a leap of faith. After being robbed of a home run by a great snag from Reds center fielder Will Benson in the first inning, Soto put one in the Park that even Benson couldn’t get to:

Love you, Juan.

What else was interesting about this game? I suppose that Trent Grisham had a nice double and a walk, bumping his wRC+ to 90 on the year. Of course he also nonchalantly fielded a single that ate him up and allowed Jeimer Candelario to advance to second, although Candelario was stranded there.

This is a smelly, smelly stretch of baseball. The Reds came into this series six games below .500, and got a sweep in the Bronx. The Yankees are now 2.5 games behind the Orioles, in a race that was always going to be close, a race where every marginal win means a lot. The season isn’t over, we’ve got a long way to go, but bad starts, bad hitting, and mediocre relief pitching is a pretty bad combo.

The Red Sox come to town a hot team, winners of three straight and in currently in extras against Miami while I write this. Nestor Cortes will be the latest starter asked to put a halt to this skid tomorrow night in the Bronx, where this age-old rivalry will begin another chapter at 7:05pm Eastern.

Box Score