Yankees fall to Red Sox after rough start by Ryan Yarbrough
Ryan Yarbrough #33 of the New York Yankees looks on from the mound during the third inning against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Ryan Yarbrough had been the feel-good story of the Yankees’ rotation two months into the season, as the lefthander’s array of slow, slower and slowest stuff confounded the opposition through his first five starts.
That came to an emphatic end in start No. 6.
Hit consistently, especially in a five-run third inning, Yarbrough put the Yankees in a hole they couldn’t quite climb out of in a 10-7 loss to the Red Sox on Saturday night in front of a sellout crowd of 47,020 at the Stadium.
Yarbrough, 3-0 with a 2.08 ERA in five outings since being inserted into the fifth starter spot a little more than a month ago, allowed a season-high eight runs and nine hits in four innings.
“Not his sharpest today,” Aaron Boone said. “Not getting to those real defined spots on the plate with his different pitches. Maybe not his best cutter. In the zone but not getting to those spots he’s been so good at getting to.”
Yarbrough, who spent the first month of the season primarily in long relief, now is 3-1 with a 4.17 ERA overall. He said he agreed with Boone’s assessment of his cutter.
“There was a lot of them leaking more toward the middle,” Yarbrough said. “One of those things I’m definitely going to be looking at and putting a little more work on going into this next one.”
Trailing 8-5 entering the eighth, the Yankees (39-24) put runners on second and third with one out against lefthander Justin Wilson, who couldn’t find the strike zone. Jasson Dominguez struck out, but DJ LeMahieu grounded a two-run single up the middle to make it 8-7. Austin Wells, who had hit a three-run homer and an RBI double in the first four innings, struck out swinging at a 95-mph fastball to strand pinch runner Anthony Volpe at second.
Rather than go to Devin Williams in the ninth, Boone chose Ian Hamilton, who has mostly struggled this season, and paid for it. The righthander allowed a two-run single by Trevor Story (three hits, five RBIs) to give former Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman a cushion, and Chapman pitched a perfect ninth for his 10th save in 11 chances.
“A little bit short tonight, but I loved the compete from our lineup up and down,” Boone said.
That was especially true against Boston lefthander Garrett Crochet, who came in 5-4 with a 1.98 ERA for the underachieving and at-times dysfunctional Red Sox (31-35). The Yankees tagged Crochet for a season-high five runs in six innings. He allowed six hits, walked one and struck out nine.
The Red Sox took a 1-0 lead in the second when Romy Gonzalez (three hits) led off with a double and scored on Kristian Campbell’s single to right.
Cody Bellinger led off the second with an infield single, reached second on a one-out balk and stole third on what turned out to be ball four to LeMahieu. Wells then jumped on a first-pitch, 91-mph cutter and lined it 343 feet to right for his 10th homer to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead. The lefty-swinging Wells came into the day hitting lefties better this season (.222) than righties (.203).
The Red Sox then sent nine to the plate in the third to take a 6-3 lead. The big hit was Story’s three-run double, a hot grounder that came off his bat at 106.4 mph and deflected off Pablo Reyes’ glove as he tried to backhand it.
“That ball’s smoked off the bat,” Boone, a former major-league third baseman, said of Reyes not making the play. “Tough chance. A little bit do-or-die, and he didn’t make it.”
Rob Refsnyder walked with one out in the fourth and, with two outs, Gonzalez pounded a first-pitch, 70-mph sweeper to leftfield for his first homer of the season and an 8-3 lead.
The Yankees pulled within 8-5 in the bottom half, an inning that featured hitting coach James Rowson getting ejected for arguing balls and strikes with plate umpire Bruce Dreckman during Dominguez’s at-bat. Wells had an RBI double in the inning.
“I thought we had really good at-bats,” said LeMahieu, who went 2-for-3 and is 8-for-17 since June 1. “Thought we had a good approach coming in and we executed the plan and just fell short today.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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