Well, yesterday was yesterday, and today is today. And it couldn’t be more half-hearted, and worse. Right?

Wrong.

Austin Wells was restored to the catcher’s role. He continues to be defensively strong, but with the bat (0-for-3 today), he remains consistently weak. Oswaldo Cabrera who had come on to replace Aaron Judge in the field in the previous game, was now switched to leftfield. Everson Pereira was benched. The rather hopeless Giancarlo Stanton was also benched, with Judge taking over at designated hitter.

To add to the problem the struggling Detroit Tigers have left town, and the Milwaukee Brewers are the new opponents. Milwaukee took over leadership of the National League Central division on the 14th of August, and remained constantly in charge since then. They arrived in the Bronx being 15 games over .500, whilst the Yankees with their Tigers’ loss had slipped back to a 70-70 record and are still filling the basement of the eastern divsion.

Luis Severino took the mound for the Yankees. His performance was uneven, and by the time he began the fifth inning he had given up 3 hits, and 2 runs. However, due to a home run by the young centre-fielder Jasson Dominguez, the Yankees had a 2-0 lead which looked more than could have hoped for given what was on the field. So, Willy Adames’ home run in the fourth had only tied the game. In the fifth, Severino gave up a single to Brice Turang and then pulled up with an injury to his left-side. Later this was rather descibed vaguely as an upper body injury. More crucially, it sees him headed to the injured list, and may well end his time with the Yankees – given his poor season and terrible injury record.

By the bottom of the fifth, the Brewers had also replaced their starter with Colin Rea being replaced by Abner Uribe. Jhony Brito had taken over from Severino. He somehow found his way out of the fifth, allowing a walk and a stolen base, but somehow no runs. Two singles were to follow in the sixth. Brito was on his way to his weakest appearance of the season. In the bottom of the sixth, Dominguez produced a single and a stolen base. Wells also walked, but the game remained tied at 2 each.

The seventh inning started with Brito given up a double to Andruw Monasterio. It eluded Oswaldo Cabrera in leftfield. Christian Yelich grounded out, but did enough to advance Monasterio to third. It was enough to bring Brito’s appearance to a conclusion.

He was replaced by Jonathan Loaisiga. Now in times past, this would be enough to raise the confidence of the 37,000 or less in the seats, but Loaisiga is not pitching like he once was. His pitching tonight resembled batting practice for the Brewers. William Contreras hit a single to open up a lead. He then stole second to move himself into a scoring position. Score he did on a single by Carlos Santana which was stretched to allow Santana to reach second on a Jake Bauers‘ fielding error. Sal Frelick grounded out, moving Santana to third. This was followed by a Willy Adames’ double to give the Brewers a five-two lead by innings end.

The Yankees provided no opposition in the bottom half of the inning, and the Brewers put themselves out of reach in the top of the eighth. Greg Weissert had replaced Brito at the beginning of the inning. He gave up 5 hits (3 singles and 2 doubles). There was also a stolen base and a balk. The Yankees were falling apart at the seams, and looked dilapidated and disorganised.

The Brewers’ 9th saw Weissert replaced by Tommy Kahnle. Kahnle gave up a single to Turang, but otherwise did well. And after all the Brewers had no great need to add to the score.

Thyago Vieira came in to pitch the last half inning, and Volpe, Peraza, and Bauers folded their hands with little opposition.

The game featured a 15 minute rain delay, which probably had more of a chance of changing the oucome of the game than anything the Yankees did. Loaisiga and Weissert had much more to do with the loss than Brito, but it was Jhony who took the loss slipping to 6-7 on the season.

Just as tellingly the Yankees only achieved three hits, whilst giving up 2 errors (A Severino throwing error being the first). Brewers contributed 16 hits to make this an eminently one-sided game.

We’ll be back tomorrow for Old Timer’s Day, and a chance for the Yankees to tie the series.