On Saturday — as in much of the past five weeks or so — a base runner counted as a significant development for the Yankees.
Any hint of offense these days should be cherished.
And so Aaron Judge’s leadoff walk in the bottom of the fourth, when the Yankees already trailed by four runs, represented a trace of hope.
That hope immediately was slapped by reality: New cleanup hitter Austin Wells grounded the first pitch he saw from Taj Bradley hard into the ground, a double play erasing any thought of a rally.
The Yankees’ two-man offense was reduced to a zero-man offense in another fight-less loss, 9-1 to the Rays, in front of 43,173 in The Bronx.
The 19th loss in the Yankees’ past 28 games included persistent groundouts from an offense that was on the verge of its seventh shutout of the season before Juan Soto tripled in the ninth and scored in garbage time.
Aaron Boone’s group finished with five hits — three in the last inning — on an afternoon the Rays finished with four home runs.
Since this funk began on June 15 and through Friday’s action, the Yankees (59-41) had scored 127 runs, 19th-most in the span and one fewer than the Nationals and Tigers.
On days when Judge and Soto can’t inject life into the offense, the offense too often flatlines.
Boone has tried to shake up the lineup on several occasions, first bumping Ben Rice to the leadoff hole (where Rice recently has stalled) and Saturday by upgrading Wells and downgrading Alex Verdugo.
The problem has not appeared to be the order of the hitters but the hitters themselves.
Rice’s average is down to .218.
LeMahieu is 0-for-his-last-17.
Verdugo is in a 3-for-35 rut.
Even the elevated Wells has just three hits in his past 21 at-bats.
Rice got the Yankees started in the first inning with a double to the gap in right-center.
Soto moved him over with a groundout, before Judge and Wells struck out to strand Rice on third.
The Yankees did not put another runner into scoring position — or record another hit — until the eighth inning.
On days when even base runners can’t be manufactured, nine runs feels like a mountain to climb.
Nestor Cortes, who has been brilliant in The Bronx and far less so on the road, reversed the trend by bringing his struggles home.
The lefty’s stuff and velocity trended down, he induced just five whiffs on 48 Rays swings and too often suffered whiplash from watching Tampa Bay crack pitches all over the park for a trio of home runs.
The six runs he surrendered in 4 ¹/₃ innings swelled his ERA to 3.99.
After dancing out of trouble for the first two innings, Cortes watched as his mistakes began getting punished in the third.
Curtis Mead drilled an RBI double off the wall in left-center for the first run.
An inning later, a single and a walk put two on for Alex Jackson, who snuck a three-run shot just over the right-field wall and Judge’s leaping glove for a four-run cushion.
In the fifth, Isaac Paredes — a third baseman whom the Yankees could target at the deadline — crushed a sweeper over the left-field wall.
Two batters later, Randy Arozarena chose left-center for his first of two home runs on a day the Rays (49-49) looked like the team that should be doing some buying at the deadline.
Josh Maciejewski let up the second homer to Arozarena, but the Yankees’ bullpen simply was eating innings.
After Judge’s walk in the fourth, the next 12 pinstriped hitters were retired in a row.
The Yankees continually put the ball on the ground against Bradley, who recorded 21 outs — just two through the air.
Anthony Volpe snapped the hit-less skid with a one-out double in the eighth against righty Shawn Armstrong.
But Volpe finished the inning on second after LeMahieu — who saw three pitches over the heart of the plate and didn’t offer at two of them — and Rice struck out.
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