If the Yankees were looking for any more clarity about the weak parts on a roster that’s looked mostly dominant even without Aaron Judge, they got it Thursday in The Bronx.
What had been a tight game against a White Sox team they’d hammered the previous two games turned on its head with one pitch from Camilo Doval, the right-hander who’s been unreliable since he was acquired from the Giants nearly a year ago.
Faced with the unenviable task of entering with the bases loaded and one out in the top of the eighth of a tie game after Tim Hill drilled back-to-back hitters, Doval faced pinch hitter Andrew Benintendi and gave up a grand slam on his first pitch in a 5-1 loss.
“It’s not the result you want there,’’ Doval said through an interpreter. “With the bases loaded, you try to throw strikes and get ahead. It was a good sinker with movement, but he was able to hit it very well.”
Doval was far from the only reason the Yankees had their four-game winning streak snapped, losing for just the second time in 10 games.
A lineup that had piled up 30 runs in its previous three games couldn’t get anything going against lefty opener Bryan Hudson or right-hander Sean Burke, who had been knocked around by the Dodgers and Phillies in his previous two appearances but limited the Yankees to one run in 7 ¹/₃ innings to finish the game.
The Yankees brought a season-high 3½-game lead in the AL East over the idle Rays, who were just swept by the Dodgers in Los Angeles.
Despite a solid start by lefty Ryan Weathers, who gave up just one run in 6¹/₃ innings, the Yankees were unable to finish off a sweep of Chicago.
Weathers had allowed at least five runs in each of his previous three starts — and four of his last five — but struck out the side in order in the top of the first, an indication of how powerful his stuff was on Thursday.
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He began the second by giving up a leadoff homer to Colson Montgomery after allowing seven homers in those three previous starts. It was Montgomery’s third homer in two games.
That would be all Weathers would give up to the White Sox on this night.
He responded to the Montgomery homer by facing one batter over the minimum until he walked Montgomery with one out in the seventh to end Weathers’ outing.
Ryan McMahon got to Burke to open the bottom of the third with an opposite-field homer to left-center that tied the game at 1-1.
José Caballero gave the Yankees a brief scoring chance against Burke in the fifth, as he reached second on a single and an error by center fielder Tristan Peters.
But Caballero was picked off second and McMahon whiffed.
With one out in the seventh, Anthony Volpe — in the game after Jazz Chisholm Jr. was forced out when he fouled a ball off near his groin — hit a liner off the left field wall.
As Junior Pérez chased down the ricochet, Volpe tried to get to third and was thrown out — an aggressive play of which Boone said he approved.
In the eighth, Fernando Cruz gave up a leadoff double to pinch-hitter Luisangel Acuña before Hill entered and hit pinch-hitter Sam Antonacci, as well as Tristan Peters — Peters on an 0-2 pitch — to load the bases with no one out.
Hill struck out Chase Meidroth before Doval entered to face Benintendi, who tagged Doval with a shot out to right on a 99 mph sinker that wasn’t low enough.
Doval has been ineffective against lefties this season and bad in high-leverage spots since getting to the Yankees, but Boone said he remained confident Doval could pitch under the bright lights of New York.
“I don’t think it’s a situation where he’s overwhelmed by a bigger situation,” Boone said. “It comes down to execution.”
There have been too many times, though, when the execution hasn’t been there.
“I’m not getting the results I expect from myself at this moment,” Doval said. “But I know they’re coming.”
