Yankees can't solve Yusei Kikuchi in loss to Mariners
Jonathan Loaisiga of the Yankees walks to the dugout after the fourth inning against the Mariners at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
The Yankees got zero momentum from Tuesday night’s thrilling, ninth-inning comeback victory. On Wednesday night, Jonathan Loaisiga was roughed up in his return to the rotation and Mariners lefthander Yusei Kikuchi didn’t allow a hit for 5 1⁄3 innings in Seattle’s 10-1 victory before 38,774 at Yankee Stadium.
Loaisiga (1-1), who was called up before the game to replace the injured James Paxton, allowed four runs in four innings. The righthander gave up six hits, walked two, struck out three and threw 83 pitches. His outing was a slog from start to finish.
Yankees third baseman Gio Urshela left the game in the top of the eighth after fouling a ball off his left knee in the bottom of the seventh. Urshela finished the at-bat and then was replaced on defense. An X-ray was negative and the Yankees said Urshela suffered a knee contusion.
“We’ll just kind of monitor that overnight,” manager Aaron Boone said.
On Tuesday, the Yankees scored three in the ninth to beat the Mariners, 5-4.
But Loaisiga set a poor tone in his third start and fourth appearance of the season. He gave up a first-inning run on Edwin Encarnacion’s one-out sacrifice fly and went on to throw 27 pitches in the inning.
Mitch Haniger led off the third with a home run to make it 2-0. Seattle scored twice more in the fourth on doubles by Ryon Healy and Dylan Moore and an RBI single by Dee Gordon to make it 4-0.
“Just again, a lot of pitches,” Boone said of Loaisiga. “That struggled to put away guys in certain situations. They fouled off some of his good pitches, so he gets into some long counts and then you see him start to fatigue a little bit . . . He battled and you see the flashes in there. You see how good he can be and we’ve just got to keep working at it with him as he continues to develop.”
Encarnacion homered off Luis Cessa in the fifth to give Seattle a 5-0 lead. The Yankees still didn’t have a hit off Kikuchi, who signed with the Mariners in January after being posted by his Japanese team.
The Yankees showed interest in the 27-year-old Kikuchi, who signed a creative contract with Seattle that includes a guaranteed $56 million over four years and could be worth as much as $109 million over seven years.
Kikuchi (2-1) walked the first batter he faced, LeMahieu, and then retired 16 in a row.
No. 9 hitter Mike Tauchman picked up the Yankees’ first hit, a floating double over the outstretched glove of a furiously retreating third baseman Healy.
The exit velocity of Tauchman’s double was 60 miles per hour. LeMahieu followed with a bloop single to right (71 mph exit velocity) and the Yankees scored on Luke Voit’s sacrifice fly.
That was it against Kikuchi until Tauchman blooped a single to right with two outs in the eighth to end Kikuchi’s night. Kikuchi walked one and struck out three in a 7 2⁄3-inning, 106-pitch gem.
“He pitched really well and really shut us down,” Boone said. “We didn’t make much hard contact against him.”
The YES Network cameras showed what appeared to be a foreign substance on Kikuchi’s cap, which may have been pine tar. Boone said he was alerted to that in the later innings.
“I’ll take a look at it and we’ll see what we make of it,” he said.
“I could care less about that,” Cameron Maybin said about the possibility of pine tar. “Nobody noticed it. Nobody said anything.”
Healy (4-for-5, three doubles, homer) hit a two-run homer in the eighth off Jake Barrett, who gave up three runs in the ninth in his second Yankees appearance. After the game, Barrett was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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