The sold-out Yankee Stadium crowd had grown restless as the fifth inning ended Friday night.
By the end of the game against the Astros, it was just deflated.
After being held to one baserunner through the first five innings, the Yankees tied it with two runs in the sixth and ultimately sent the game to the 10th. Devin Williams, called upon in a big spot despite his recent struggles, then squandered any chance the Yankees had.
Williams, who entered to boos before throwing a pitch, surrendered three runs — including Taylor Trammell’s two-out, two-run homer — in the Yankees’ 5-3 loss in front of 46,027.
Williams has allowed nine runs, seven hits (including three homers) and four walks in 4 2⁄3 innings in his last five games. He is 0-2 with two blown saves in that span and has given up at least one run in each outing.
“I’m not making pitches,’’ he said. “It’s pretty simple. I stink right now.”
He added, “It’s tough. It’s not something I’m used to. I really haven’t struggled like this since probably 2018, coming back from [Tommy John surgery]. All I did then was continue to work and just try to help the team in any way I can.”
“Obviously right now, several struggles now in a row,’’ Aaron Boone said. “So we just try and find softer landing spots. Harder to do that right now when you have a shorter outing by the starter, you’re piecing it together and you got a guy down. You don’t always have the opportunity. So we’ll try and find good spots for him to get him back to being a big part of the pen, which he should be.”
Anthony Volpe singled home a run with one out in the bottom of the 10th and pinch hitter Giancarlo Stanton drew a two-out walk from Josh Hader to put runners on first and second, but Trent Grisham lined to center.
Meanwhile, the Yankees (61-55) continued to sink. They have lost six of their last seven and 30 of their last 49. They hold the third wild card but are only a half-game ahead of Cleveland and 1 1⁄2 games ahead of Texas. They fell 2 1⁄2 games behind Seattle (second wild card) and 3 1⁄2 games behind Boston (first wild card) and remained 6 1⁄2 games behind AL East-leading Toronto.
Williams’ first pitch was a wild one, allowing ghost runner Jose Altuve to move to third, and it did not get better from there. Carlos Correa’s RBI single gave the Astros (65-51) a 3-2 lead.
Williams (3-5, 5.73 ERA) got two consecutive forceouts at second, the latter a bizarre 8-6 putout after Amed Rosario failed to make a difficult backhand catch on Yainer Diaz’s drive while crashing into the electronic State Farm sign in rightfield. Grisham picked up the ball and fired it in to force Christian Walker at second (Walker, who clearly thought the ball had been caught, retreated to first as Diaz wildly waved him toward second).
Then Trammell, who played five games for the Yankees last season, crushed a two-run homer 383 feet to rightfield to give the Astros a 5-2 lead. Trammell’s homer came on an 0-and-1, 82.1-mph changeup squarely in the strike zone.
“I’m close,” Williams said. “You go back in all these games, it’s come down to essentially one mistake, and they’re making me pay for it. So yeah, it’s been tough.”
Boone already had used Yerry de los Santos, Camilo Doval and Luke Weaver, whom he did not consider sending out for the 10th after he threw the ninth. He said he was staying away from David Bednar and Mark Leiter Jr.
Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Jazz Chisholm Jr. had gone down in order in the ninth as Hader (6-2, 2.05 ERA) pitched the final two innings.
In what has become a yearly tradition since the 2017 Astros’ sign-stealing scandal was revealed, Yankees fans showered old nemesis Altuve (2-for-4) with boos and expletives ahead of his first at-bat. He turned them into fuel, giving the Astros a 2-0 lead with a two-run homer to leftfield on Cam Schlittler’s first pitch to him.
Bellinger prevented a run in the fourth with his third outfield assist of the season. He fielded Cam Smith’s single through the right side and fired a one-hopper to Austin Wells, who applied the tag on Trammell after an aggressive send by Astros third-base coach Tony Perezchica.
Astros righthander Hunter Brown, among the American League’s best pitchers this season, had retired 14 straight and allowed one baserunner — a ground-rule double by Ben Rice in the first inning — before the sixth, when the Yankees finally got to him.
Ryan McMahon led off the inning with a walk and Wells followed with a double down the rightfield line. Rice and Judge lined back-to-back RBI singles with one out to tie it at 2-2, knocking Brown out.
Schlittler, making his fifth career start, allowed two runs, seven hits, a walk and a hit batsman in five innings, striking out three. He tossed a career-high 97 pitches. A Yankees starter has not pitched at least six innings since July 30, when Will Warren threw six.
As for Williams, he said, “You just keep going out there and putting your best foot forward. And hopefully the tide changes.”
Ben Dickson joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins’ teams.
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