Aggressive baserunning backfires in Yankees' 13-inning loss

SEATTLE -- The Yankees pitched well on Tuesday night and they played excellent defense. It was that near-seamless run-prevention magic of which championship dreams are made.

But in the haze of a 1-0, walk-off loss to the Mariners at T-Mobile Park that went 13 innings and lasted more than four hours, the one thing the Yankees talked about the most was all the footprints they left on the basepaths.

After a spectacular pitching duel between Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and Seattle starter Luis Castillo that played out like a classic October nail-biter, it was the Yankees’ baserunning mistakes that loomed largest and eventually paved the way for Seattle’s win, which came on a Luis Torrens single with the bases loaded through a drawn-in infield in the bottom of the 13th.

“Just tough plays in tough situations,” said Yankees shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who was thrown out on the bases in a pivotal spot in the 12th inning. “It's a good learning experience. [Being aggressive on the bases] kind of backfired on us a little bit. It helped us win a lot of games earlier in the year, and tonight, it just didn't go our way.”

After Cole had been so brilliant through seven shutout innings (eight strikeouts, no walks, only four hits) and Castillo had matched him through eight (seven strikeouts, three hits), the bullpens took over and were as stingy as the starters. On the Yankees’ side, Aroldis Chapman pitched a scoreless eighth and Clay Holmes followed with a shutout ninth.

But things got truly weird, and a bit sideways, in extra innings.

In the 10th inning, with Andrew Benintendi on second base as the automatic runner, Mariners reliever Paul Sewald hit Josh Donaldson with a pitch to put runners on first and second. Benintendi took off for third and Sewald stepped off, alertly catching him in a rundown. Sewald then got Gleyber Torres to ground out before Miguel Andújar struck out to end the threat.

In the 11th, the inning began with Andújar placed on second and Aaron Hicks hit a line drive to Seattle second baseman Adam Frazier, who caught the ball and then fired to shortstop J.P. Crawford at second to double off Andújar. Jose Trevino followed with a lineout to right, and that inning was over.

And in the 12th, with Trevino beginning the inning on second base, it was Kiner-Falefa’s turn to try to make something happen.

He hit a comebacker to pitcher Matt Brash, who snagged it behind his back, wheeled, and saw that Trevino was caught between second and third. He threw to shortstop Crawford, who threw to third baseman Eugenio Suárez to nail Trevino. At this point, Kiner-Falefa was well in the act of trying to get to second base, and he ran out of the baseline trying to avoid the tag of Frazier. It was scored a 1-6-5-4 double play, and the next batter, DJ LeMahieu, struck out to erase that potential uprising.

“I mean, the guy catches the ball behind his back, so he's hidden behind the runner, so I don't have any issue with [Trevino] going there,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “And then Isiah is doing all he can to try and get to second with the rundown going on.

“I don't want to lose our aggression on the bases. We've been really successful. But, you know, we've got to be a little smarter. And we've had a couple here in the last couple of weeks that have kind of hurt us. But you know, I think the biggest thing tonight is we just had a hard time getting hits.”

Oh yeah, there was that, too.

The Yankees only managed to scratch out three hits in 13 innings, which obscured the effort of the pitching staff.

“There's going to be days where we mess up like how we did today,” Kiner-Falefa said. “But the fact that we were able to stay in it, it's a good thing. And hopefully we just learn from this and we can build and learn from our mistakes.”

It certainly helps when you get Cole’s dominant seven innings plus sparkling efforts from relievers Chapman, Holmes, Scott Effross, Wandy Peralta, Lou Trivino and Jonathan Loáisiga, who combined for 5 1/3 innings of three-hit, one-run ball.

“Tonight was just a well-pitched game on both sides,” Cole said. “But probably if you're walking away from this one, you’re probably like, ‘Man, I wish maybe we didn't make so many mistakes on the bases.'

“There's going to be times where those little details add up and end up costing you and end up costing at least an opportunity to kind of put one through. You just have to be so fine in games like this.”