HOUSTON — As hot as the Yankees have been in the last two weeks, they have not made up much ground in the American League East. So when they took the field Wednesday night with their ace, Masahiro Tanaka, on the mound, it was with the rare prospect of gaining on Baltimore, Toronto and Boston, all of whom had lost.
But the Yankees whiffed on their opportunity — and virtually everything else that Houston’s Lance McCullers Jr. and three relievers threw at them, striking out 15 times in a 4-1 loss.