The Yankees lost to the Astros after the bullpen allowed six runs

On Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees lost 9–7 in the first game of the series against the Astros. The normally very reliable bullpen allowed six earned runs in four innings pitched. The Yankees had gone 6–1 in their previous seven games and in those seven games the bullpen allowed just four earned runs in 29.1 innings pitched.

The Yankees are now 45–6 (.882) when scoring at least five runs this season. Entering this game against the Astros, their .900 win percentage (45–5) in those games was the best in MLB. The Yankees had won each of the their last five games that they had scored at least five runs.

Fernando Cruz was brought into the game in relief of starting pitcher Will Warren and he struggled again. Cruz allowed a walk and then a two-run home run. He has allowed three earned runs with two homers in his last three games in a span of three innings to raise his ERA from 2.79 to 3.13. In his 10 games pitched in August, he has a 6.75 ERA in eight innings. He had a 2.51 ERA entering August and he now has a 3.13 ERA. In Cruz’s first 45 games of his season he allowed 12 runs with two homers in 41 innings. In his last last 16 games, he has allowed 11 runs with five homers in 13.2 innings pitched.

The 2022 fifth place Rookie of the Year finisher and 2022 World Series MVP Jeremy Pena, who missed a month earlier in season with an injury, hit a fastball down the middle by Cruz for a two run homer into the second row in left above the Bad Boy Mowers sign to tie the game at five in the sixth. Bellinger made a catch in left on a fly ball by Yordan Alvarez to end the 6th. Yerry De Los Santos held the Astros scoreless in his hitless seventh inning. He now has a 1.02 ERA in his 17.2 innings this season in 12 games. He is becoming a high leverage relief pitcher. However, Brent Headrick, who has been one of the best relief pitchers in MLB this season, struggled very much in the eighth inning.

Headrick’s 56 scoreless appearances coming into this game were the most in MLB. He allowed a 99.2 mph exit velocity opposite field homer to catcher Yainer Diaz to tie the game at six in the eighth inning. That was his fourth homer allowed this season. He had allowed just one homer in his previous 45 games. It was a very rare bad outing for Headrick. Headrick allowed three earned runs in this game after allowing just three runs combined in his previous 21 games in 20.1 innings. The Astros scored two runs with two outs after Diaz’s homer on a go ahead RBI triple by the leading MVP candidate Alvarez that scored Pena and then an RBI single to center by Isaac Paredes that scored Alvarez.

In this game, starting pitcher Will Warren allowed two earned runs (three overall) in five innings pitched with seven hits and two walks allowed. The Yankees had a 5–3 lead after the bottom of the fifth inning, so he was in line to get the win at the point. Warren had allowed two runs through the first three innings and then he allowed his third run in the fifth inning.

Alvarez got to third on a sacrifice fly to Spencer Jones in the 5th inning. That sacrifice fly was the second out. Daulton Varsho then came to the plate. He came over to the Astros in a trade on August 3 from the Blue Jays. Varsho had a grounder into the hole between first and second beyond a diving Jazz Chisholm. That RBI by Varsho tied the score at three. That was the seventh hit against Warren. Jose Caballero made a good play at third base on on a bouncing grounder by Christian Walker to end the top of the 5th inning.

Warren threw just 56 of his 97 pitches for strikes. His ERA went down from 4.43 to 4.39 after allowing his two earned runs in five innings. He had a 4.14 ERA through his first 22 games of his season through the end of July but his ERA is now up to 4.39 after allowing 12 earned runs with five homers in 18.1 innings in his four starts in August (5.89 ERA in August).

George Lombard Jr. had a throwing error in the first inning, which allowed the veteran Jose Altuve to be safe at first. That meant he had committed in error in four consecutive games. That’s the longest single-season streak by a Yankee as a shortstop since Alvaro Espinoza in 1989 (5 straight games). Lombard has five errors in his 18 MLB games and four of those five errors have come in his last four games.

Ethan Pecko, who was making his second MLB start after allowing two earned runs with three hits and three walks in 3.2 innings in his MLB debut last week against the Angels, allowed five earned runs with two homers and four walks in five innings pitched. Pecko was a 6th round pick by the Astros in 2023 out of Towson University in Maryland.

The Yankees scored three runs in the third inning on a 368 foot 3-run homer by Cody Bellinger. He drove in Trent Grisham and Luis Garcia Jr. Grisham walked to leadoff the inning and then Garcia singled after Ben Rice popped out to shortstop. Garcia had his best game as a Yankee as he went 4–5 with a homer and three RBI. Bellinger had his first homer since June 17. He snapped a 32-game homerless streak, which was the 2nd-longest of his career. Bellinger went 1–5 in this game and is 2–9 since coming off of the injured list.

Against the starting pitcher Pecko, Garcia had a 109.5 mph exit velocity bullet homer above WB Mason sign into the short porch to give the Yankees a 5–3 lead in the 5th. He was a big time addition at the trade deadline for his offense and improved defense at first base over Rice. Garcia has very good stats this season. Garcia’s .554 slugging percentage is the second best in MLB behind Alvarez’s .618, his 27 homers are 16th in MLB and his .283 average would be tied for seventh in the AL. The pitch was a high fastball in the strike zone and he got on top of it for his third hit of the game. That was the starting pitcher’s last pitch and then a lefty relief pitcher Bennett Sousa came into the game.

Sousa had a 7.38 ERA in his previous eight games. He got Bellinger and Lombard out in consecutive at-bats to end the 5th and then he retired the side in order in the sixth inning with the inning ending with Austin Wells flying out to second. Wells is 4–27 in his last 10 games after going 8–22 in his previous eight games. After not allowing a run in his 1.2 innings, Soussa’s ERA went down from 4.86 to 4.42.

Altuve came to the plate in the 7th with a runner on first and no outs. Altuve got booed once again when he walked to the plate and during his at-bat since he was a big contributor early in his career when the Astros were electronically stealing signs and beat the Yankees in the playoffs. He struck out looking on a fastball by De Los Santos and got cheered.

Caballero fell to one for his last 25 with his strikeout in the 7th inning. The lefty Steven Okert, who has a delivery similar to Hall of Famer Randy Johnson, struck out Caballero. Okert, who is in his ninth MLB season, changed his delivery to be more like Johnsons’s earlier in his career and that led him to have more success.

After Rice singled to center to put runners on first and third with one out, Garcia had a hard hit RBI double on a curve to right to score Grisham to make the score 6–5. Garcia improved to 4–4. He drove in Grisham who worked a walk earlier in inning. That double put runners on second and third with one out. Rice was then thrown out at home on a grounder by Bellinger that was deflected by the pitcher and fielded by the shortstop. Pena made a perfect throw home. Bryan Abreu, who had a 6.23 ERA against the Yankees, got Lombard to fly out to right to end the 7th.

In the eighth inning off of Abreu, Jazz Chisholm had a clutch two strike RBI single to score Jones to make the score 8–7. Jones had a 110 mph exit velocity double off the base of the wall. After Chisholm’s single, Wells grounded into a double play. Caballero then used his elite speed to reach base on an infield single and that single was Abreu’s last batter.

Josh Hader then came into the game and proceeded to strike out Grisham swinging and retire the side in order in the ninth inning. Bellinger flied out to Varsho in right center on a sinker to end the game. Hader is a six-time All-Star who has an outstanding 0.81 ERA in 34 games this season with 44 strikeouts in 33.1 innings and 19 saves. He does not have a blow save this season. He has a 2.52 ERA in his 502 games in his 10 MLB seasons. He has had an ERA of below 3.00 in seven of his 10 MLB seasons.

His best season was in 2021, which was when he had a 1.23 ERA in 60 games with 102 strikeouts in 58.2 innings, just three homers allowed, a 338 ERA+ and a 0.835 WHIP. Hader has not allowed a run in his last 15 games in a span of 16 innings to lower his ERA from 1.56 to 0.81. He has been one of the best relief pitchers in MLB in the last decade.

Clarke Schmidt, who had Tommy John surgery in July of the 2025 season, could be an option out of the bullpen in September. Luis Gil, who was the American League Rookie of the Year in 2024 with the Yankees when he had a 3.50 ERA in 29 starts, made four starts back in April and had a not good 6.05 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP. Gil was demoted to the minors after allowing six runs with two homers in four innings on April 26.

He did not pitch in a game until August 11, which was when he transitioned into being a relief pitcher. In his four games, he has not allowed a run in his 6.2 innings and has eight strikeouts with three walks. In his last game on August 23 against the Charlotte Knights, he threw 1.2 scoreless innings while recording three strikeouts and allowing two hits. In that game, 22 of his 30 pitches were strikes. His four-seamer sat at 95–97 mph, and he got to 98 twice. He could be a a dominant force out of the bullpen in the playoffs.