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Rangers overpower Yankees and end their series winning streak

ARLINGTON, Texas — After getting ejected from a game for the first time as a manager, Aaron Boone woke up Wednesday morning to a string of jibing texts from his “humorous knucklehead” pals back home in Arizona.

“It was that bad, huh?” he asked.

A moment later, Boone sighed. “This job’s got me swearing again,” he said.

The ensuing hours gave Boone little reason to cleanse his mouth. The New York Yankees endured one of their most %^#*&! losses of the season, blowing both a four-run and then a five-run lead in a 12-10 defeat to the Texas Rangers.

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The loss, which dropped the Yankees to 1 1/2 games behind the Boston Red Sox for the best record in baseball, dampened the end of a 10-day trip in which they played only six games. Coupled with Tuesday night’s loss, it also ended a streak of eight consecutive series victories.

And while the Yankees continued to crush the ball — they clubbed four more home runs, giving them 21 in their last five games — their pitching let them down for the second consecutive night.

“We score 10 runs and lose the game,” said starter C.C. Sabathia, who could not hold a 4-0 lead. “That’s unacceptable.”

Neither Sabathia nor their usually steady relievers could handle the prosperity that the offense provided. David Robertson surrendered a bases-loaded double to Jurickson Profar in the sixth that gave the Rangers a lead they would not relinquish.

The final run the Rangers tacked on was a study in frustration. Dellin Betances began the bottom of the eighth with three strikes to Delino DeShields, but the third strike bounced past catcher Austin Romine to the backstop, allowing DeShields to reach first.

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Betances then threw away a pick-off attempt, sending DeShields to second. When DeShields attempted to steal third, Romine got the ball stuck in his glove and could not make a throw. DeShields then came home on Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s single.

“That’s baseball — 162 games,” said Boone, who insisted that neither that inning — or the night — were vexing. “Honestly, you roll with it. You prepare each day. So no, I don’t get exasperated. We’re locked in, we’re prepared.”

It was the third consecutive subpar start for Sabathia, who had allowed only five earned runs in his first six starts. He has allowed 14 in his last three.

Although Sabathia routinely struggles against the Rangers — he entered with a 5.12 career ERA against them — he cruised through the first three innings, allowing only a first-inning walk to Shin-Soo Choo. But the 4-0 lead he carried into the fourth quickly evaporated. Nomar Mazara hit a two-run homer to right-center, and, after two walks, Ronald Guzman lined a three-run homer that barely cleared the wall down the right-field line.

What surely had to gall Sabathia is that both homers came on two-strike sliders with little bite to them.

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Sabathia was given a reprieve when the Yankees continued their assault on starter Doug Fister, who in the first two innings had surrendered homers to the slumping Didi Gregorius — his first since April 27 — and Neil Walker, and had also walked Romine on four pitches with the bases loaded.

One-out hits by Walker, Miguel Andujar and Romine preceded a three-run homer to deep left field by Gleyber Torres. It was the third consecutive game with a home run for the 21-year-old rookie, who became the youngest major leaguer to do so since Giancarlo Stanton hit homers in three straight games in September 2010 at age 20.

The barrage continued against reliever Tony Barnette, who gave up a single to Brett Gardner and a booming home run to Aaron Judge, and once again the Yankees seemed to have a stranglehold on the game with a 10-5 lead.

It turned out to be not enough.

Sabathia could only get one out in the fifth, allowing a single to Choo, a liner down the right-field line by Kiner-Falefa that scooted under Judge’s glove for a triple, and a bouncer up the middle by Nomar Mazara that ticked off Sabathia’s glove for an infield hit that scored Kiner-Falefa.

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Jonathan Holder closed the fifth without any further damage, maintaining the Yankees’ 10-7 lead.

But it did not last through the sixth. After Chasen Shreve gave up a pair of singles around a strikeout of Carlos Perez, Boone summoned Robertson. But the veteran right-hander walked Choo and Kiner-Falefa — both on 3-2 pitches — to force in a run. After striking out Mazara, Profar drove Robertson’s first-pitch fastball into the right-field gap for a three-run double, and the Rangers had an 11-10 lead.

“I’ve pitched like crap — there’s nothing else to say about it,” said Robertson, who has allowed six runs in his last four games. “I’ve been very poor. I haven’t thrown a lot of strikes. I walk guys. All my walks score. I’d like to turn things around and get some clean innings going, but I’m going through a rough patch right now.”

With the lead, Rangers relievers Alex Claudio, a left-hander, and Jose Leclerc, a right-hander, pieced together a scoreless seventh. Chris Martin, a former Yankees right-hander, worked around grazing Stanton with a hitless eighth. And after the Rangers boosted their lead to 12-10 in the eighth, Keone Kela buzzed through the ninth. He struck out Andujar, pinch-hitter Gary Sanchez and Torres.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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BILLY WITZ © 2018 The New York Times

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