For six innings, it looked like the New York Yankees had everything lined up.
Then one inning flipped the entire night.
Ryan Weathers took the mound for the first time since May 2 and gave New York exactly what it needed, and then some. Coming off a serious viral infection that cost him nine pounds and had him battling a 102-degree fever, the lefty delivered six no-hit innings and carried a 2-0 lead into the seventh against the Baltimore Orioles. It was not just effective, it was dominant in spots, especially considering the circumstances.
And the wild part is, he did not even realize what he had going.
“To be honest with you, I had zero idea,” Weathers said after the game. “I was walking guys and stuff like that, so I guess it never really rang a bell with me what was going on.”
The stat line says three walks, one in the first, one in the fifth, and one more in the seventh, but none of them hurt him. He worked around traffic, kept Baltimore off balance, and looked in full control heading into the seventh inning.
That is when everything changed.
Adley Rutschman opened the frame with a clean single up the middle, ending the no-hit bid and shifting the momentum. After a groundout by Pete Alonso and a walk to Tyler O’Neill, Yankees manager Aaron Boone went to the bullpen, calling on Brent Headrick to hold the line.
Instead, the game broke open.
On just his third pitch, Headrick left one up and Coby Mayo did not miss, sending a three-run shot into the left field seats that erased the Yankees’ lead and gave Baltimore a 3-2 advantage they would not give back.
Just like that, a no-hit bid turned into a loss.
Weathers finished his night at 101 pitches, a strong outing considering what he had been through physically over the past two weeks.
“It’s definitely been a rough couple of weeks, for sure,” he said.
For the Yankees, the loss pushes their skid to four straight, a sharp contrast from the 16-3 run that had them sitting comfortably atop the AL East not long ago, a stretch that even included a four-game sweep of these same Orioles by a combined 39-10 margin.
Right now, that version of the team feels distant.
And this one ended with frustration.
In the ninth, New York appeared to have life when pinch-runner Jose Caballero was initially called safe at second on a stolen base attempt with two outs. The Orioles challenged, and after review, the call was overturned, with Blaze Alexander applying the tag just in time to end the game.
No rally. No second chance.
Just another close loss in a stretch where nothing is going right.
The Yankees had the pitching. They had the lead. They had the moment.
They just could not finish it.
