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NEW YORK – Miguel Cairo knows the aura that surrounds Yankee Stadium well. He called the old Yankee Stadium home for parts of three seasons during his 17-year major league career.
His message to his young Nationals team ahead of tonight’s three-game series opener in The Bronx: Embrace it and play clean baseball.
“Just do the little things,” the interim manager said during his pregame media session. “You gotta do the little things better than anyone, and you might have a chance to win games.”
Although the Nats have been playing cleaner ball lately, they by no means did the little things better than the Yankees tonight, dooming them to a 10-5 loss that was more of a shellacking by one of the most dangerous offenses in baseball than the final score assumes.
“That's what we've been preaching. To beat teams like this, you cannot give outs away," Cairo said after the game. "But our team has been playing good. It's just one of those days. So far, I'm proud of how we've been doing. Playing hard, it's just one of those days.”
Early mistakes set the tone for what would be a tough night for the Nationals.
The Yankees scored their first run off Brad Lord when the rookie right-hander issued back-to-back walks in the first, with both runners advancing on a passed ball charged to Riley Adams. That set up Cody Bellinger’s sacrifice fly to center to give the Pinstripes an early 1-0 lead.
As the Nationals tried to get back in it, their mistakes on the basepaths cost them scoring opportunities.
Jacob Young drew a four-pitch walk with one out in the third, but was picked off by Yankees rookie right-hander Cam Schlittler after his first pitch to James Wood. The Nats put runners on the corners in the fourth with base hits by CJ Abrams and Josh Bell, but for some reason, the big first baseman tried to steal second base with two outs and was easily caught stealing to end the threat.
“He has quick feet," Young said of Schlittler. "I kind of slipped on my way back, and that's part of it. But he has quick feet, good move. I'm trying to make something happen there, and it just can't happen.”
“Just me trying to see if something (could) happen," Cairo said of putting the steal sign on for Bell. "But sometimes you just gotta be aggressive.”
The Nats’ fielding wasn’t always clean, either. Even though it didn’t result in any runs for the Yankees, Abrams committed a throwing error to give Bellinger an extra base in the third following Ben Rice’s solo homer.
And then things fell apart for Lord and the Nats in the fifth.
Back-to-back singles, a flyout and an Aaron Judge automatic double down the right field line made it 3-0 Yankees as pitching coach Jim Hickey came out to try to settle down his starter. But Bellinger ripped a two-run single and Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a two-run homer to make it 7-0 Yankees.
Lord gave way to Jackson Rutledge, who retired the final two batters in the inning without further damage. But the damage to Lord was already done as he finished the night with eight hits, seven runs (six earned), two walks, five strikeouts and two home runs in 4 ⅓ innings, his shortest outing since he’s been fully stretched back out as a starter.
"They got some dangerous hitters," Lord said. "I made a few mistakes tonight and obviously they made me pay for it. And good hitters like that, they don't miss too many mistakes.”
Overall, Lord is now 4-7 with a 3.84 ERA, but his ERA since rejoining the rotation after the All-Star rose from 3.45 to 4.54 as the Nats dropped just the second of the seven games he’s started.
“It was just executing pitches with two strikes and runners on base. Just not throwing it down the middle," he said. "So I just gotta find that balance with that.
“In the fifth inning, I left a few too many pitches in the heart of the plate. And they were able to make good contact with it and make me pay for it.”
Then mistakes with two outs really came back to haunt Cole Henry in the seventh. After a walk and a single, Jasson Domínguez hit a three-run homer to make it 10-0. The ball kept carrying to right field and that's usually going to be a homer here (and in only four other major league ballparks), much to the delight of the announced crowd of 36,939.
Meanwhile, the Nationals couldn’t come anywhere close to matching the Bronx Bombers’ pop.
Domínguez’s homer was New York’s major league-leading 218th of the season, almost 100 more than the Nationals’ 125, which ranks third-worst.
The offense had nothing going against Schlittler and his triple-digit fastball. They went hitless in only three chances with runners in scoring position and stranded four runners on base against the righty, who improved 2-2 with a 2.76 ERA as he quietly establishes himself as the Yankees’ best starting pitcher.
“He located really well," Young said. "A lot of life on that heater. I thought he was able to locate it away from us very well and kind of just keep us off-balance. We never really got anything started. A baserunning mistake here early by me, and it just kind of derailed some things. But I thought he just pitched really well.”
The Nats managed to load the bases against right-handed reliever Yerry de los Santos in the ninth inning and they were only able to push five runners across the plate via Robert Hassell III’s walk and Jacob Young’s first-career grand slam. But it was way too little way too late.
“No matter what inning it comes in or whether you're up or down, they all count," Young said. "So just trying to get a good pitch. Same approach, get something up. He left something up-middle and I was able to put a good swing on it.”
While the Yankees scored six of their runs off homers, the Nats’ only extra-base hit came with two outs in the ninth inning of a game that was all but already lost, as they went quietly into the New York night needing to focus on the little things in order to make a bigger impact.
“We always, in our mind, we're going to get good at-bats and we always got a chance to come back," Cairo said. "All these last three games, it's been like that. Against the Phillies, we make a comeback. We played good against the Mets. And so, you know, just one of those days. It happens and we gotta move on and tomorrow we come and get him.”
“I think that wasn't a clean brand of baseball, if that's what he wanted, at least in my eyes," Young said. "There's a lot of small things that we can definitely do better. And if we do those things better, maybe it's a different game early. Those are the small things we can clean up. Some of it is mental. And so when you do stuff like that, you just gotta kind of bounce back tomorrow and go back and fix those small things, because they're fixable. It's not an effort thing and it's not like we're outmatched. It's just you gotta fix the little things and it's a brand new ballgame.”
