Yankees can't hold three-run lead, lose to Orioles

BALTIMORE — Gerrit Cole wasn’t as sharp as he had been of late, and with the bullpen the Yankees had available in much of the season’s first half, Aaron Boone likely would have pulled him after six innings and 102 pitches.

But Boone’s bullpen continues to take on water — Michael King’s season-ending elbow injury Friday night was the latest blow — and Cole successfully lobbied to stay in the game with the Yankees leading by one.

The lead quickly vanished with a double and RBI single, and after Albert Abreu threw away a pickoff attempt moments after replacing Cole, the Yankees were on their way to a 6-3 loss to the Orioles on Saturday night in front of 36,361 at Camden Yards.

The Yankees (65-31) had 11 hits — including Matt Carpenter’s 14th homer — but just three in the final five innings as the Orioles (47-47) slowly clawed their way back from a 3-0 deficit after four. The Yankees went 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 11 on base.

“That’s frustrating,’’ Boone said. “We had chances to really pull away. Ton of traffic, a lot of good at-bats up and down the lineup, but just not able to break through or get that big extra-base hit with guys on base.”

The Yankees, who held a nine-game lead over the Astros after the games of June 18, have gone 16-15 since then and lead Houston by 1 ½ games in the battle for the American League’s best record.

Shane Greene, brought up from the minors earlier in the day, couldn’t keep the deficit at one run in the eighth. He retired the first two batters but walked Rougned Odor and allowed a two-run homer by Ramon Urias that gave the Orioles a 6-3 lead.

Facing All-Star Jorge Lopez in the ninth, DJ LeMahieu reached on an error by first baseman Ryan Mountcastle and Aaron Judge collected his fourth hit of the night, a laser single to left. Anthony Rizzo bounced to first, advancing the runners, but Gleyber Torres flied to right, where Ryan McKenna made a fine running catch near the line, and Josh Donaldson struck out looking.

Cole, who came in 9-2 with a 3.02 ERA — including 4-1 with a 2.14 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 46 1⁄3 innings in his previous seven starts — was not that pitcher Saturday. He was charged with four runs (three earned) and nine hits in six innings-plus in which he walked two and struck out six.

Regarding his decision to keep Cole in the game, Boone said: “Just where we were in our pen and he was just reaffirming, like, ‘let’s go.’ He wasn’t pleading his case necessarily. It was more like, ‘I’m good, let’s go.’ We were pretty short [in the bullpen] tonight.”

Cole came out for the seventh with Abreu ready in the bullpen. Urias led off with a double and Jorge Mateo blooped an RBI single to right to tie it at 3-3. In came Abreu, who threw wildly to first on a pickoff attempt, allowing the speedy Mateo to get to third. Cedric Mullins’ sacrifice fly gave Baltimore a 4-3 lead.

Said Cole, who took the loss: “It’s just kind of a sour feeling overall. We’re thin [in the bullpen]. We had a couple of guys go short for us the last couple games and some brutal travel and obviously, unfortunately, Mike King [getting hurt]. I don’t know how much left I had in there, but I have to give the boys everything I had tonight. A little unfortunate that they just found some holes. It was a good pitch to Mullins, a good pitch to Mateo, not a great pitch to Urias but bad contact. That’s their game. They don’t swing and miss a whole lot. They’re really tough to strike out . . . Just the way the ball falls sometimes. Try to find a little bit of fun in it. It was a fun grind. I’m exhausted, but it was a good back-and-forth battle.”

He added, “I mean, the combination with Mike going down and the travel and the rough starts . . . You’re just trying to sell out for the boys.”

Six pitches into the game, the Yankees had the lead against righty Jordan Lyles, who came in 6-8 with a 4.76 ERA.

LeMahieu made it 25 straight starts in which he reached base at least once with a leadoff single, improving to 18 for his last 43 (.419) in that stretch. Judge yanked a double down the leftfield line to make it 1-0.

In the second, Carpenter hit his 14th homer in 87 at-bats as a Yankee. That made him 29-for-81 (.358) with all of his homers and 35 RBIs in his 24 starts.

The Yankees, who left the bases loaded in the third — Judge led off the inning with his second double in as many at-bats — made it 3-0 in the fourth. Isiah Kiner-Falefa led off with a single, extending his hitting streak to 11 games, and went to third on LeMahieu’s second hit of the night, a one-out single. With the outfield playing back (appropriately), Judge flared one to left-center for an RBI single. At that point, the Yankees were outhitting the Orioles 8-2.

With two outs in the fifth, Mateo nearly took Cole’s head off with a liner back through the box and stole second. Mullins blooped a single to center to make it 3-1, stole second and scored on a sharp single to right by Adley Rutschman to make it 3-2.

The Yankees have lost eight of their last 12 games. “You’re constantly trying to duck and dodge the adversity,’’ Cole said, “but at some point, you have to go through it. It’s just too long of a season. So how we dig ourselves out of it, how we continue to respond and show up, that’s going to show us what we’re made of. Everybody’s got to go through it at some point of the year, there’s no doubt about that.”

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.