Yankees’ bats revert to old ways in ugly loss to Astros

For one night, a Yankees offense that had been emerging disappeared.

It happens. But the Yankees would have a real problem if those bats do not reappear this weekend.

Manager Aaron Boone’s bunch will welcome the Red Sox to The Bronx for one of the most significant series of the season on a down note, dropping the rubber game to the Astros 5-1 on Thursday in front of 41,203 whose best moment of the evening was receiving the George Constanza bobblehead.

The Yankees (75-58) fell four games behind the Rays in the American League East and are just two games clear of Boston for the top AL wild-card spot, which provides a touch more intrigue for the four games in three days that begin Friday — games that could decide home-field advantage for a wild-card series.

“They’re one of the best teams in the game right now,” said Boone before the game of the Red Sox. They are on the Yankees’ heels in part because they have been unstoppable during the second half and in part because the Yankees offense went to sleep without Aaron Judge.

At least until Monday, when the Yankees began a three-game surge in which they scored 24 runs on 34 hits with the kind of balanced, powerful and patient attack that the club long has envisioned.

And the kind of attack that was not evident against former farmhand Hayden Wesneski and three Houston relievers, who Thursday held the Yankees to five hits and, critically, none with runners in scoring position.

The Yankees had plenty of chances and plenty of frustration, finishing 0-for-9 with runners on second and/or third to waste a solid effort from Gerrit Cole (who pitched better than his six-innings, three-runs score line).

Cole was mostly dominant until the sixth, when Daulton Varsho worked a two-out walk and Christian Walker following by lifting a knuckle-curve just deep enough to right-center for a two-run shot that made it 3-0.

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The Yankees managed their only run in the bottom of that inning — when Ben Rice doubled and scored two long-enough fly balls later — but watched the deficit grow in part because of another head-scratcher from George Lombard Jr.

A top prospect whose glove has long been his calling card is having problems with either his glove or his head, extending what has been a surreal streak to six straight games with an error.

This time, it was a somewhat challenging but playable ground ball that Yainer Díaz sent to Lombard’s right in the eighth inning.

Lombard did well to range over so he did not have to rely upon his backhand, but the ball hopped up to the heel of his glove and bounced out, essentially a pass from Lombard to third baseman José Caballero.

Caballero grabbed it, spun and threw wildly to first base, the pair of errors allowing an unearned run to score.

That kind of mistake — and that kind of knuckle-curve from Cole — created too much of a hole for an un-clutch offense to overcome.

In the game’s first five innings, the Yankees went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position against Wesneski, who had been moved in the 2022 Scott Effross trade.

Twice Jazz Chisholm Jr. attempted to jump-start the offense — in the third, he reached on an infield single and stole second, only to stay there as Caballero grounded out and Trent Grisham popped out, and in the fifth he walked and stole second without an out, only for Austin Wells to strike out, Caballero to fly out (which moved Chisholm to third) and Grisham to chase a Wesneski sinker that ran away from him.

They also had something going in the fourth, when a Rice single and Cody Bellinger walk helped put two on with one out.

This time the youth — Lombard and Spencer Jones — both struck out.

The defeat was just the third in their past 10 games, and the Yankees still have won or split 10 of their past 14 completed series. They are playing better, more well-rounded baseball than June, July or earlier August.

Better, but probably not best with one of the biggest series of the season on deck.