BOSTON — Will Warren righted himself after one of the worst opening innings by any Yankees starter this season.
But the six-run deficit into which Warren plunged the Yankees on Sunday night proved too steep a hole for his club to climb out of in a 6-4 loss to the Red Sox in front of 35,437 at Fenway Park.
“It sucks because tonight felt like a big one,” Warren said. “We needed to try to get the sweep there.”
Instead, Boston’s first five batters had hits — including a triple by Jarren Duran on a skied ball near the Green Monster in left that Giancarlo Stanton appeared to have trouble tracking — and by the time eight Red Sox had batted, Boston had hit for the cycle against Warren.
“He wasn’t missing any bats there in that first inning,” Aaron Boone said.
And while the Yankees slowly clawed their way back, getting within 6-4 on home runs by Amed Rosario, Aaron Judge and Jose Caballero, former Yankees prospect Garrett Whitlock and former Yankee Aroldis Chapman slammed the door in the final two innings. The Yankees struck out 16 times.
“The boys did a really good job battling back,” Boone said.
The Yankees (83-66) fell four games behind the AL East-leading Blue Jays with 13 games remaining (that deficit really is five games because Toronto won the season series).
The Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox (82-68) for the AL’s top wild-card spot was trimmed to 1 1/2 games (the Red Sox also own the season-series tiebreaker, so the Yankees will have to beat them out by at least a game to finish ahead of them).
The Yankees went 7-5 in their 12-game stretch against the three division leaders (the Blue Jays, Astros and Tigers) and a top wild-card contender (the Red Sox).
“I think it’s a good stretch for us, especially facing four good teams in a row,” said Caballero, who for now has supplanted Anthony Volpe as the shortstop and has done nothing in the past week to suggest he can’t handle the everyday duties there. “It [says] a lot about this team, and we’re ready for the playoffs.”
Warren (8-7, 4.44 ERA) settled down after his 29-pitch first, pitching four scoreless innings. He entered the night 2-1 with a 2.81 ERA in his previous nine starts.
“They came out, were aggressive,” said Warren, who allowed a season-high 10 hits. “I think I executed well for the most part in that first inning. They just put some good swings on the ball and they found the holes.”
Red Sox ace lefthander Garrett Crochet (16-5, 2.63), an AL Cy Young Award candidate, allowed three runs, five hits and a walk in six innings in which he matched his season high with 12 strikeouts.
The Yankees got to him in the fourth when Stanton singled and Rosario, a trade-deadline acquisition known for his career-long ability to hit lefthanders, cracked a two-run homer that made it 6-2.
Judge’s 400-foot blast to right-center in the fifth — his 48th of the season and fifth in six games — brought the Yankees within 6-3. Judge, who struck out his first two times up, went 2-for-4 in raising his batting average to an MLB-leading .326 with a 1.125 OPS.
In the seventh, Long Island’s Steven Matz allowed Caballero’s 423-foot blast onto Lansdowne Street outside the ballpark. Judge singled leading off the eighth against Whitlock but the righthander then struck out three straight. Chapman pitched a perfect ninth for his 30th save and lowered his ERA to 1.26.
The game more or less was decided in the first. After Duran’s AL-leading 13th triple, Alex Bregman’s sharp single made it 1-0 and Trevor Story lined a single to right. Nathaniel Lowe smoked an RBI single to right and Romy Gonzalez had an RBI double. Masataka Yoshida’s sacrifice fly to deep center made it 4-0 and moved Gonzalez to third, which allowed him to score on Rob Refsnyder’s groundout to second. Former Yankee Carlos Narvaez’s two-out home run to center made it 6-0.
“Obviously, a tough first inning,” Boone said. “They stung a few balls, but a few that just kind of found holes on him. But buckled down and gives us five innings and lets us hang around and creeping back into it. Really good effort to not let it completely get away.”
Notes & quotes: The Yankees next play seven more road games — three against the Twins (65-84) followed by four against the Orioles (69-80) — before returning home for three against the White Sox (57-93) and three against the Orioles. The Red Sox will host the Athletics (70-80), play road series against the Rays (73-76) and Blue Jays (87-62) and end the season at home against the Tigers (85-65).
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.
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