This week, Aaron Boone called Aaron Judge the “best player in the world right now,” which might be true.
But two San Diego superstars with claims to the title stole the show in front of the third sold-out crowd of the season in The Bronx.
Juan Soto and Fernando Tatis Jr. launched a pair of home runs that combined to travel nearly 900 feet to provide the bulk of the Padres’ scoring in a 5-1 Yankees loss in front of 46,724 on Friday night.
The Yankees (30-23) have followed a five-game winning streak with a three-game losing streak, dropping the final two of a series against the Orioles and the first of a set against the Padres (24-27).
The latest defeat included little offense and no official manager.
Bench coach Carlos Mendoza served as the skipper as Boone served a one-game suspension following his third ejection in his past 10 games.
No manager, though, would have made the difference in a game that became about the visiting stars.
Soto was the first to strike.
Four pitches after fouling a cutter off his knee, the former Nationals outfielder hammered a 3-2, middle-of-the-plate cutter 432 feet to the second deck in right field in what had been a scoreless game in the fifth inning.
Soto watched the two-run shot go, flung his bat at the ground and started a slow trot.
“I was a little mad, you know? Fouled it off myself — I don’t like that,” Soto said after his 10th homer of the season. “And then he threw me the same pitch trying to make me foul it off again. So I was a little pissed off, and I just took all my madness out on the ball.”
Those two runs were the only ones allowed by Yankees starter Randy Vasquez, who otherwise had an impressive major league debut.
Soon thereafter, it was Tatis’ turn.
The 24-year-old, who missed 80 games from the end of last year into the beginning of this season after testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance, heard “Steroids” chants from fans in the nearby right-field seats in the first inning.
In the sixth, Tatis took out any lingering annoyance on Ron Marinaccio.
He blasted a Marinaccio changeup to the second deck in left field and stood in the batter’s box until it hooked around the pole and landed 439 feet away.
Only then did Tatis begin jogging around the bases for his own two-run homer.
“That’s some of the best hitters in the game,” Judge said of Soto and Tatis. “That’s what you see on a nightly basis out of those two.”
For two nights straight, the Yankees have managed a single run.
They pushed across one run in the sixth, when an Anthony Rizzo groundout scored Gleyber Torres, but far too often failed in big spots.
Against Joe Musgrove and the Padres’ bullpen, the Yankees went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.
They put two on and brought up what was then the potential tying run twice in the seventh, but Isiah Kiner-Falefa struck out in a 10-pitch battle with Steven Wilson before Jake Bauers popped up.
An inning prior, Judge reached third base with two outs, but the struggling DJ LeMahieu fouled out.
LeMahieu, whose strikeouts are way up and whose OPS (.716) is down, is 9-for-49 (.184) with 14 strikeouts and one extra-base hit (a double) in his past 13 games.
“Just missing some pitches I feel like I should hit and expanding [the strike zone] a little bit,” said LeMahieu, who added he feels fine a year after a fractured toe torpedoed his season. “I’m not putting together the at-bats that I had the first part of the year.”
The Yankees couldn’t ask for much more from Vasquez, who threw one regrettable pitch in his first 4 ²/₃ major league innings.
The young righty became Soto’s latest victim — which happens — but looked strong in allowing two runs during a spot start prompted by Domingo German’s sticky-stuff suspension, which necessitated another starter to be called up.
He was not the problem on a night the Yankees were held homer-less.
“When we expand a little bit and miss our mistakes,” Judge said, “it’s tough to beat [opponents], especially the pitching staff they got over there.”
And the sluggers over there, who reminded that Judge was not the only superstar in the building.
