A matter of feet denies Volpe a legendary finish

NEW YORK -- The stage seemed set perfectly for Anthony Volpe, who fondly recalls attending scores of Yankees-Red Sox games from his family’s seats in Yankee Stadium’s 200 level, imagining what it might feel like at the center of the action. That long-awaited rivalry debut had finally come, and as he stood at home plate in the ninth inning on Friday, it felt as though all eyes in the city were fixed upon him.

The count ran full and Volpe flicked his wrists at a cutter, sending a drive toward the left-field seats. He hopped once, twice, three times down the line, trying in vain to will the baseball back into fair territory. Alas, this would not be his Carlton Fisk moment. Volpe popped out on closer Kenley Jansen’s next pitch, sealing the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Red Sox.

“I just wanted to be aggressive in my zone,” Volpe said. “I knew he had good stuff, and he’s had a really, really good career off of his cutter, so I figured I was going to get pitches to hit. With the game on the line, I wanted to take a shot there. Obviously, not the result I wanted, but hopefully there’s a lot more opportunities like that in the future.”

Volpe’s seven-pitch battle with Jansen came with two runners aboard, and the Yankees trudged off the field lamenting what could have been. At 110.0 mph, the foul liner would have been Volpe’s hardest-hit ball of the season -- his swing was just a tick or two early.

“I thought it was a really good at-bat; he just missed winning the game there down the line,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I felt like the guys did a lot of things right tonight. We just couldn’t get that big hit in the end.”

It has been a season of “bumps and bruises” for the 22-year-old Volpe, as captain Aaron Judge recently put it. Volpe’s sizzling bat and solid glove prompted bang-the-table meetings this spring, where decision-makers insisted the only call was to bring Volpe north, despite limited experience at the Triple-A level. He would learn on the fly, and be given the slack to do so.

Volpe is the first to admit that his numbers are not where he’d envisioned. A 1-for-4 showing on Friday placed his slash line at .189/.264/.351, with nine homers, 26 RBIs and 14 stolen bases in 65 games. The hits haven’t been dropping, but even more notably, Volpe’s patience has cratered: He worked 16 walks in March and April and just six since.

“It’s definitely a really good league,” Volpe said. “I don’t necessarily think it’s a swing thing; for me personally, working on mechanics and stuff like that can actually get me in a bad spot. For me, it’s leaning on the really, really good guys in this clubhouse that help me every step of the way. I think I’m definitely making progress.”

The ninth inning provided a dramatic finish to the season's first meeting between the Yankees and the Red Sox, a crowd of 46,007 strong in the Bronx for a showdown opener. Gerrit Cole would depart scratching his head, still wondering how to get Rafael Devers out consistently. Cole accepted his first loss despite six innings of two-run ball, with Devers again a thorn in the righty’s side.

Devers smoked a fourth-inning double, then scored on a Triston Casas single. He powered a sixth-inning drive into the left-field bullpen -- Devers’ seventh career homer off Cole, who has permitted no more than four to any other player.

“They paid him $300 million for a reason,” Cole said. “He’s a good player, man. I haven’t come across any other player quite like him.”

Said Devers, through an interpreter: “Cole is not an easy pitcher to face. To be honest with you, I’m glad to be able to hit him.”

The Yankees were held in check by Garrett Whitlock until the sixth, when Josh Donaldson powered a solo homer to Monument Park. Donaldson has six hits this season, and five are homers.

Kiké Hernández homered in the seventh off Albert Abreu. Isiah Kiner-Falefa dashed around the bases in the home half, reaching on an infield single before stealing second, advancing on an error and scoring on a Whitlock wild pitch.

“For only scoring two runs, I felt like we had a lot of quality at-bats, up and down,” Boone said.

And while the Yankees were busy wondering “what if” about Volpe’s long foul, their biggest game-changer sat in the dugout, still with no timetable for his return. The Bombers are now 7-9 when Judge doesn’t play, a stat they’d love to stop adding to.

“I think we just miss him,” Cole said. “He’s the greatest player in the world, pretty much.”