ARLINGTON, Texas — Luis Severino was not happy and neither were most of the fans at Globe Life Field Monday night.
The home of the almost worst-in-baseball Rangers was packed with Yankees’ fans hoping to see history. Aaron Judge, however, did not hit a home run for the fourth straight game and remained tied with Roger Maris with 61, the most ever hit by an American League player. Severino was pulled after throwing seven no-hit innings as the Yankees beat the Rangers 3-1.
The Yankees (98-61) have three regular season games left for Judge to try and best the 61-year old record with Maris’ children and his family watching. Severino was solid in his outing, but it was the move Yankees manager Aaron Boone had to make.
Severino was making his third start after missing two months with a lat strain. The right-hander insisted he felt good enough to come back sooner, but the Yankees have been very careful with him due to his previous bouts with serious injuries.
After Severino struck out Nathaniel Lowe to end the seventh inning, Boone met him at the bottom of the stairs going into the dugout. The manager put both his hands on Severino’s shoulders and started to explain his decision. Severino nodded at him as if to say he felt fine. Boone continued talking and Severino kept turning his head away and would not look at his manager.
Finally Boone tapped him on the back and Severino walked away down the dugout, obviously unhappy at the chance to finish it off.
Severino pitched seven shutout innings. He walked one and struck out seven. He was brilliant throwing 94 pitches and getting 13 swings and misses. He went to a full count just seven times all night and Josh Smith needed a nine-pitch battle before earning a walk in the third. He was Severino’s only baserunner.
Severino was originally supposed to start the home finale against the Orioles on Sunday, but had his start pushed back to Monday due to rain in the forecast. He’s allowed 3 runs and struck out 17 batters over 16 innings for a .169 ERA since returning from the IL.
Miguel Castro, who had been on the injured list since July 10 and just activated before the game, gave up a line-drive single over shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa to start the bottom of the eighth. Castro gave up a run on a Kole Calhoun ground out.
The bottom of that inning began with the Yankees’ No. 9 hitter Marwin Gonzalez homering off of Jonathan Hernandez and then Judge striking out swinging on a 99-mile an hour sinker. Giancarlo Stanton followed with his 30th home run of the season. He is the third Yankees’ player this season to hit at least 30 homers, joining Judge and Anthony Rizzo, who has 32. They are the first trio of Yankees to hit at least 30 homers in the same season since 2005, when Jason Giambi, Alex Rodriguez and Gary Sheffield did it.
But the 35,906 that came to Globe Life Monday night didn’t come to see those homers. They came to see Judge make history. Instead, he went 1-for-4 with a strikeout. His batting average remained at .311, now four points lower than Minnesota’s Luis Arraez who leads the American League.
The slugger grounded out in the first and lined out to the second baseman in one of the six double plays the Bombers were caught in Monday night. The six double plays were one shy of the major league nine-inning record. He hit a check-swing single in the top of the sixth and struck out in the seventh.
In the top of the ninth, he was on deck when Gonzalez popped out to end the inning — which caused fans to boo.
Since hitting his 60th homer of the season on Sept. 20, Judge is hitting .235 with one homer, 18 walks and 15 strikeouts. He has reached base safely in 31 straight games, dating back to Aug. 29 in Anaheim when he hit his 50th home run of the season against the Angels.
He’s hitting .392 with 20 extra-base hits, 21 RBI, 30 runs scored and 47 total walks in that span.
