Yankees end skid but lose Matt Carpenter in victory over Mariners

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone, second from right, and a trainer, right, talk with Matt Carpenter after he fouled a ball off his ankle against the Seattle Mariners during the first inning of a baseball game, Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, in Seattle. He was replaced in the lineup after his at bat. (AP Photo/John Froschauer) Credit: AP/John Froschauer
SEATTLE — Even as they ended their longest losing streak of the season, the Yankees still took a loss Monday night.
A significant one.
Though they banged out eight extra-base hits, including Aaron Judge’s MLB-leading 44th homer, in a 9-4 beatdown of the Mariners at T-Mobile Park, a bit of the shine was taken from the victory with the news that Matt Carpenter, one of their most consistent hitters, had fractured his left foot.
Carpenter, who saw his career reborn after signing with the Yankees on May 26, fouled a ball off the foot in the first inning. He stayed in the game and struck out but gave way to pinch hitter Tim Locastro in the third.
"I don't know enough about where [the fracture] is and how long the recovery is, but I'm hopeful,'' Carpenter said. "I don't want to say a number because I just don't know, but I'm holding out hope that it'll be a situation where I can come back in the middle of September and I can contribute towards the stretch run. So we'll see. That's my mindset, that I'll be back. I'm not going to let my mind go anywhere else. I'm not even going to accept the fact that this will be it for me.
"I knew it was broke. I knew something was wrong when I did it, but I thought that I could finish the at-bat and get that run in. But then, when I went to swing on the next pitch, as soon as I started to plant and rotate on that back foot, my lower body like gave out and I wasn't able to. Thankfully, probably the best thing that happened was to swing and miss, because if I hit it and had to run, I might have made it worse. But I knew it wasn't good.
"What really hurt me was . . . I foul balls off my feet all the time, happens all the time, but the fact that it was my back foot and I was rotating, up on my toe, there was nothing behind it, like no ground behind it to force, so the ball just kind of snapped the bone. A fluky, unfortunate deal, but these things happen."
Aaron Boone said of the loss of Carpenter: “Big. And he’s become such an important factor in that room. Everyone loves him and he’s been incredibly productive. It’s a blow. Hopefully we get him back at some point.
“The way he hit it and I saw his first steps, I felt like I knew he got it good. That’s why I went out there initially. The way he was moving, I was like, this isn’t good. I went up in between innings to proactively check on him, just because I had a feeling and he couldn’t run and he couldn’t move real well. So knew right then we had to make the switch and then got the news at some point during the game.”
Carpenter, 36, came into the night with a .319/.414/.765 slash line, 15 homers and 37 RBIs in 34 games as a starter. It is too soon to declare his season over, as the severity of the fracture was not immediately known. But the lefty-swinging utilityman, whose hot bat forced the Yankees to find playing time for him in the outfield in the last month, figures to be out a minimum of four to six weeks.
As for the rest of the night, it could not have gone much better for the Yankees (71-39), who had lost five straight and were 9-16 in their previous 25 games.
Josh Donaldson went 4-for-5 with a homer, two doubles and three RBIs. Andrew Benintendi, who had mostly struggled after joining the Yankees before the trade deadline, had two doubles and three RBIs. Judge, DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres added two hits each as the Yankees outhit the Mariners 13-6.
Jameson Taillon, who brought a 5.73 ERA in his previous 11 starts into the night, wasn’t as sharp as his first 10 starts — when he posted a 2.30 ERA — but grinded through seven innings. He allowed three runs, three hits and three walks and struck out six in improving to 11-2, 3.95.
The Yankees, who grabbed early leads in two of the three losses in St. Louis, did the same Monday against the Mariners (59-52). They scored twice in the first against Logan Gilbert, who entered the game with a 10-4 record and 3.09 ERA.
LeMahieu, who came into the day with a .393 on-base percentage, led off with a single.
Judge hadn’t homered in his previous four games but was 29-for-67 with 31 RBIs in his previous 18 games and had a .433/.548/1.030 slash line in that span. He followed LeMahieu’s hit with a double down the rightfield line, and after Carpenter struck out swinging in the at-bat in which he got hurt, Donaldson drove in two runs with a sharp single to left-center.
Taillon retired the first two hitters in the bottom half, but Mitch Haniger jumped on a 1-and-2 fastball and homered to leftfield to make it 2-1.
Donaldson pushed the lead back to two runs in the third, hammering a fastball into the second level in leftfield for his 11th homer. Torres lined a single off the wall in right and scored on a double by Benintendi.
Three straight doubles by Donaldson, Torres and Benintendi in the fifth gave the Yankees a 6-2 lead and knocked out Gilbert. At that point, the Yankees were outhitting the Mariners 10-2. Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s sacrifice fly later in the inning made it 7-2.
Taillon allowed a two-out homer to Cal Raleigh in the seventh to make it 7-3, but Judge hit a 423-foot homer to center in the ninth and Jose Trevino added an RBI single.
“It’s definitely nice to get one,'' Boone said. "It’s been a rough week for us. To punch one in the win column . . . we really played well. J-Mo was huge. We needed that because we were really thin in the bullpen.”
Said Taillon: “We went out there with a ton of energy. We’re aware that everyone’s going to try to give us their best shot every night but we have to try to match that. And I thought we did a good job of that tonight. You don’t want to overthink it and say we’re struggling or anything, but we were aware we haven’t been playing our best baseball and we needed to go out there and stop that.”
The win, however, was marred by the loss of Carpenter.
“I feel for him,'' Taillon said. "I have no doubt in my mind that he’s still going to make an impact on this team, even while he’s hurt. He’s come in here right away and made an impact on a lot of people. He’s not afraid to talk pitching with the pitchers, he’s not afraid to give honest feedback. He’s one of the best guys I’ve ever been around and played well. I wouldn’t be surprised if he finds his way back and makes an impact.”
Said Donaldson: “He’s obviously been a difference-maker on the field for us, what he’s been able to do for us in the box. In the clubhouse, he’s been just as big. Great guy, great clubhouse presence and he’s definitely going to be missed for however long it’s going to be. We’re hoping he gets some good news and it’s not going to be season-ending for him.”