WASHINGTON — John Sterling's quotes seemed to be ringing in homes across the tri-state area Tuesday night — at least among fans who held back on swearing until the sixth inning.
That's baseball, Sujin.
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole entered Tuesday's game having given up just three runs and no home runs in his previous four starts (23 innings), but gave up two homers and three runs in five innings.
Nationals left-hander Patrick Corbin entered the night with the best ERA (5.73) among qualified major league starters and had pitched six scoreless innings for the first time this year.
That combination, plus poor defense and missed offensive opportunities late, was enough to give the Yankees a 4-2 loss to the Nationals on a frustrating night at Nationals Park.
“Just little mistakes, little errors,” Aaron Judge said. “You can't do that to win games. We had some chances in the last two innings to come back and win and get the lead and we just missed them.”
The Yankees (79-54) were trailing 4-0 going into the eighth inning when Judge pitched a pitch with the bases loaded and no outs.
But the in-form slugger proved his humanity, smashing a 3-1 pitch into the ground for a double play and the Nationals (60-73) were happy to score a run, but the threat was dashed when Giancarlo Stanton grounded out for the out.
Then in the ninth, the Yankees pulled one up when Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit a double to put runners on first and second with one out.
But against right-handed closer Kyle Finnegan, DJ LeMahieu flied out into foul territory and Gleyber Torres flied out just short of the warning track, leaving the Yankees 0-for-8 despite having runners in scoring position.
When asked if he had considered pinch-hitting for LeMahieu (with Oswaldo Cabrera on the bench), manager Aaron Boone said he hadn't because Finnegan is a “killer against lefties.”
The reliever held lefties to a .186 batting average and a .636 OPS (.257 batting average and .732 OPS against righties).
A day after playing great defense, the Yankees let their guard down with three errors in the sixth inning and allowed the Nationals to expand a 3-0 lead to 4-0 and fall behind by a large margin late in the game.
With one out, Dylan Cruz hit the ball in front of home plate, which was caught by Jose Trevino and thrown to first base. Cruz reached base on a single and advanced to second on an error.
Cruz then stole third base, but after Trevino's throw to Chisholm was not picked up for a touchdown, he led off with third base and had a chance to score on former Yankee Joey Gallo's grounder to first base, but LeMahieu hit it twice to the wall, putting all the runners on base.
“On nights when we're not scoring as much, we've got to come out and compete better,” Boone said.
Gallo then stole second base, but Trevino's throw flew to center field and no one was covering the base. Boone said Anthony Volpe and Torres both thought they were covered, and Gallo advanced to third base to cap off the brutal streak.
“These things happen,” Trevino said. “It's a lack of communication.”
The Nationals took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning when former Yankees prospects Andres Chaparro and Jose Tena hit their first and second career home runs, respectively, off back-to-back 96 mph fastballs from Cole.
“we [were] “I was confident with both pitches and threw them both well,” said Cole, who struck out seven over five innings in his shortest start since July 6. “But they were the wrong pitches and they took great swings at them.”
Meanwhile, Corbin held the Yankees in check.
He allowed just two hits (a two-out double by Judge in the first inning and an innocuous single by Stanton in the fourth) and walked two while striking out six.
“He really threw his cutter ball well on both sides of the plate,” Judge said, “pitched it a little bit inside from the plate, got ahead in the count and kept the pressure on us as hitters. When they're consistently 0-1, 1-1, 1-2, it's going to be tough. He did a good job of attacking us and attacking the zone.”
