An interminable rain delay at the start of Sunday’s game at Yankee Stadium proved to be far from the ugliest part of the day for a team that entered as hot as any team in the sport.
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The Yankees ended up blowing a three-run lead to the Marlins in a 7-6 defeat, as a bullpen filled with question marks imploded in the eighth inning and the offense mostly disappeared after the third.
Down by three runs in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees rallied with walks by Cody Bellinger and Ben Rice.
Giancarlo Stanton struck out looking before Jazz Chisholm Jr. doubled in the gap to right-center to get the Yankees to within a run.
After an intentional walk to Austin Wells, J.C. Escarra pinch-hit for José Caballero and struck out to end it.
The defeat was surprising, but what caused it wasn’t.
Even with the Yankees winning eight of their first nine games — and four in a row entering Sunday — there were some lingering questions.
At the forefront was the pen, filled with pitchers with lackluster résumés.
And the lack of production from the bottom of the lineup has been alarming.
Jake Bird and Ryan Yarbrough both gave up run-scoring hits in the decisive eighth inning, but they weren’t the only culprits.
The game began well enough, as the Yankees brushed off an early run allowed by Max Fried — his first of the season — with Rice’s three-run homer in the bottom of the inning.
It was Rice’s third home run in his last four games.
The 410-foot blast into the second deck in right came against Pete Fairbanks, who opened the game since he had to get back to Miami for his wife to have labor induced on Monday.
The bizarre strategy backfired early, as Fairbanks was terrible in the first, but the Yankees’ offense hardly did anything once he left.
They scraped together an unearned run in the third to make it 4-1 against Miami’s scheduled starter, Chris Paddack, but then fell asleep.
Still, with Fried on the mound — and having pitched 13 ¹/₃ shutout innings to open the season, that seemed like it would be enough.
Fried retired the first two batters of the inning.
A walk to Norby extended the inning and Xavier Edwards drove him in from first with a double into the right field corner.
The Marlins got closer in the sixth with a leadoff walk by Jakob Marsee and a single by Lopez.
With runners on the corners and no one out, Heriberto Hernández singled to right and stole second.
Fried got Norby to ground to shortstop, but Caballero’s throw was high. Marsee scored and Lopez moved to third.
Fried picked off Hernández at first and then Caballero made up for his miscue by throwing out Lopez at the plate on Norby’s ground ball.
The call was missed by home plate umpire Manny Gonzalez despite Wells clearly tagging Lopez on the elbow. It was overturned on review to preserve the Yankee lead.
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Fernando Cruz replaced Fried with two outs in the seventh and finished the inning.
With Camilo Doval likely being saved for the ninth inning thanks to David Bednar having to throw 33 pitches in Saturday’s win, the Yankees went to Bird with one on and one out in the eighth.
Bird walked Lopez, hit pinch-hitter Griffin Conine and then gave up a two-run, go-ahead double to pinch-hitter Graham Pauley.
Now down by a run, the lefty Yarbrough entered and allowed a single to Edwards to make it a three-run game.
