The formula was the same for the Yankees’ lineup, but the result was very different.
Like they did in their ALDS Game 1 win, the Yankees drew their walks, chased the Royals’ starting pitcher early and had plenty of opportunities with runners in scoring position in Monday night’s Game 2.
But unlike in Game 1, the Yankees failed to manufacture nearly enough offense as the Royals evened the series with a 4-2 victory in the Bronx.
The Yankees went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base, despite fast-rising Royals ace Cole Ragans lasting only four innings after laboring through 87 pitches.
Ragans issued four of the Yankees’ five walks, yet the left-hander surrendered only one run, using a five-pitch mix that included an upper-90s fastball to record five strikeouts and 13 swings and misses.
The biggest of Ragans’ strikeouts came in the first inning when — after Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto walked — he got Aaron Judge swinging and Austin Wells looking before inducing a soft groundout from Giancarlo Stanton.
Ragans later struck out Jon Berti with a runner on second base to end the second inning, then got Jazz Chisholm Jr. to ground out with runners on first and second to end the third.
The Yankees began three of Ragans’ four innings with leadoff walks. The lone damage against Ragans came in the third, when Stanton’s two-out RBI single skipped into left field after a short hop ate up shortstop Bobby Witt Jr.
It was an uncharacteristically short outing for Ragans, who pitched at least six innings in 21 of his 32 starts this season, including each of the final four. He hurled six shutout innings in the Royals’ Game 1 win over the Orioles in the Wild Card round.
Chasing the 26-year-old Ragans — an All-Star who pitched to a 3.14 ERA and 223 strikeouts this season — after four innings figured to be a winning approach, considering the Kansas City bullpen ranked 20th in the majors with a 4.13 ERA this year.
But four Royals relievers held the Yankees to one run over the final five innings, as Chisholm led off the ninth with a solo home run. The scoreless frames included a seventh inning that Verdugo began with a single and an eighth inning that Judge led off with a single.
One run wasn’t enough for the Yankees to overcome a shaky start by Carlos Rodón, who surrendered four runs — all in the fourth inning — on seven hits in 3.2 innings, despite striking out seven.
Monday was a far cry from Game 1, when the Yankees drew eight walks in their 6-5 victory. That win featured a two-run fifth inning that saw the Yankees walk four times, including twice with the bases loaded. Verdugo also led off the sixth inning with a walk, then came around to score the tying run.
The Yankees scored three runs against Royals starter Michael Wacha in his four innings in Game 1, then added three more against the Kansas City bullpen.
“That was a game where we could have scored double-digits runs if we get the right big hit,” manager Aaron Boone said of Game 1 during his pregame press conference Monday. “But to score six runs where we didn’t necessarily get that big hit all the time is a credit to the at-bat quality that we have.”
But the big hit continues to elude the Yankees, and on Monday, so did the big inning.
The Yankees, who boasted the American League’s highest-scoring offense in the regular season, are 3-for-19 with runners in scoring position and have stranded 19 baserunners through two games in the ALDS.
They have gotten the leadoff hitter on base in 12 of 17 innings in the series but scored in only six of them.
After leading MLB teams with 237 home runs in the regular season, the Yankees have two in the playoffs.
And it likely won’t get any easier for the Yankees, as 34-year-old Seth Lugo, a first-time All-Star who pitched to a 3.00 ERA this season, is a candidate to start Game 3 in Kansas City on Wednesday.
