Yankees blow 4-1 and 7-4 leads, fall to Orioles

It couldn’t exactly be categorized as one of those "gut punches" Aaron Boone has talked about in a season full of crushing late-inning losses.

But that doesn’t make what happened Sunday afternoon any less of a blow to the Yankees. And it certainly doesn’t make it any less embarrassing.

On a day the bullpen lost one of its best arms to the injured list in Jonathan Loaisiga, the Yankees showed just how much they might miss him as they lost to the historically bad Orioles, 8-7, at the Stadium.

The Yankees (78-58) remarkably lost two of three to the Orioles (43-92), who came into Sunday having dropped 25 of their last 29 games (and that mark would have been even worse had they not beaten the Yankees the day before).

The Yankees, who have lost six of eight games since their 13-game winning streak, were fortunate they weren’t swept in the series. Their one victory was an edge-of-your-seat 4-3 win in 11 innings Friday night.

"Incredibly frustrating that we didn’t put our best foot forward the last couple of days," Aaron Boone said. "We’ve got to do better."

The Yankees did catch a break as the first-place Rays, who lead them by 7 ½ games in the AL East, and the Red Sox, who trail them by a half-game for the AL’s top wild-card slot, both lost Sunday.

No. 9 batter Gary Sanchez hit a 430-foot grand slam into the second deck in leftfield to give the Yankees a 4-1 lead in the second and added a 423-foot two-run homer to make it 7-4 in the sixth.

That gave Sanchez, who had gone 78 plate appearances and 70 at-bats without a home run before hitting one Aug. 31, three homers in 12 at-bats and 20 overall.

But the Orioles scored four times in the seventh, with all of the runs charged to Andrew Heaney. He hit Trey Mancini with a 2-and-2 pitch, DJ Stewart squibbed an opposite-field single to left and Austin Hays lined a single to right to load the bases before Jahmai Jones lined a drive to right that a twisted-up Giancarlo Stanton misplayed for a two-run double. Pedro Severino popped up, but Jorge Mateo blooped the 12th pitch of his at-bat just over DJ LeMahieu's head for a tying single.

Wandy Peralta replaced Heaney, who saw his ERA balloon to 7.62 in seven outings as a Yankee and was booed off the mound, and allowed a go-ahead single to left by Kelvin Gutierrez on an 0-and-2 changeup.

With the Yankees ahead 5-2, Albert Abreu, after a defensive miscue by Gleyber Torres, allowed a two-out, two-run homer by Cedric Mullins in the sixth. Torres took his time on a routine grounder by Gutierrez and lobbed a soft flip to first, allowing him to beat out an infield single and extend the inning.

"It’s a ground ball to short. We’ve got to make that play," Boone said, not hiding his irritation.

Torres said he paused to make sure he had a good grip on the ball on the rainy afternoon but added, "I took too long to throw. I feel if I make that play, Abreu finishes that inning clean. I mean, after my mistake, Mullins hit a homer. I feel like everything’s on me that inning."

Corey Kluber, making his second start after coming off the injured list Aug. 30, battled command issues in his 3 2/3 innings, allowing two runs, four hits and three walks. After Torres failed to catch Sanchez's throw to second on a stolen-base attempt in the first, allowing Mullins to reach third with none out, Kluber struck out Anthony Santander, Mancini and Stewart to escape the jam.

Boone wasn’t around to see much of the game.

After Joely Rodriguez, who took over for Kluber in the fourth, walked Mancini and Stewart back-to-back with one out in the fifth, Boone brought in Abreu. On his way back to the dugout, Boone got in some verbal jabs at plate umpire Jeff Nelson, who soon tossed the manager, who returned to the field to further express his displeasure with Nelson's strike zone. It was Boone’s sixth ejection of the season.

Still, the plate umpire had little to do with Sunday’s outcome. The Yankees’ biggest issue at the moment is how they’re going to cover the innings Loaisiga so capably had been handling.

"We’ve got to spread it out with everyone, and everyone has to kind of share the load and get it done," Boone said. "That’s been the hallmark of when we’ve been at our best this year . . . is everyone’s contributed, and we’re going to need to continue that through this difficult stretch we’re in now."

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.