ARLINGTON, Texas — The Yankees’ offense had been mostly scuffling of late, even before Aaron Judge went down with an injury.
They sure could have used him on Saturday, although the way Nathan Eovaldi was throwing, even Judge might not have made a difference.
Eovaldi dominated against his former team, tossing a three-hit shutout to lift the Rangers to a 2-0 win at Globe Life Field.
He scattered just three singles — only one of which left the infield — while walking none and striking out eight on 113 pitches.
The Yankees (15-13) only had one runner reach second base all night, Willie Calhoun in the fifth, and he didn’t make it any further than that.
“Kind of classic Nate when he’s really on top of it,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He kind of bullied us. Used both sides of the plate, was a little bit unpredictable. He was slowing us down a little bit with the curveball, but obviously the cutter and the split and stuff-wise, he was throwing hard.”
Eovaldi has had his share of gems against the Yankees, most of them coming during his time with the Red Sox, but Saturday was arguably his best.
“We’ve seen him like that before,” Boone said. “We’ve had a little bit of success from time to time, but he’s had a lot of really good performances against us and I would put that one up there.”
Before Judge went down on Thursday with a mild hip strain, the Yankees had broken out for 12 runs on Wednesday against the Twins.
But they have now scored four runs or fewer in 14 of their last 17 games, including all three games in this series against the Rangers (16-11).
Coming off another abbreviated outing last Monday, in which he did not make it out of the third inning against the Twins, Yankees right-hander Jhony Brito turned in an encouraging start on Saturday.
The rookie right-hander gave up only two runs across five innings, thanks in large part to some terrific defense behind him.
But none of Brito’s fielders could keep the Rangers off the scoreboard in the fifth inning.
After Robbie Grossman led off with a line-drive single to left field, former Yankees prospect Ezequiel Duran demolished a 1-0 changeup 431 feet to left field for a two-run home run and the 2-0 lead.
“Good pitch,” Brito said through an interpreter. “You gotta give him credit there. I guess he was looking for that pitch and he made the adjustment and he was able to execute there.”
Brito and Duran were teammates in 2021 at High-A Hudson Valley before Duran was traded to the Rangers’ organization as part of the Joey Gallo deal.
Before Duran’s long ball, the Yankees’ defense had saved Brito.
In the bottom of the first, Jake Bauers — who had been called up from the taxi squad earlier in the day — made a sliding catch on the left-field warning track to save a run before slamming into the wall at full speed.
That forced Bauers to leave the game early with a right knee contusion, with initial X-rays negative.
Later, with one out and runners on second and third in the third inning, ex-Met Travis Jankowski hit a ground ball to shortstop with the infield in.
Anthony Volpe fielded it cleanly and immediately fired home, where Jose Trevino slapped the tag on Duran for the second out.
Nathaniel Lowe then hit a deep fly ball to the gap in left-center field, with Aaron Hicks and center fielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa both making a run to chase it down.
They appeared to be on a collision course before Hicks leaped just in front of Kiner-Falefa and reached back to make the catch on the warning track.
But preventing those runs still wasn’t enough on a night when the Yankees were not able to scratch any across against Eovaldi.
“It was just his night,” Hicks said. “Everything was working for him.”
