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ARLINGTON, Texas — Can’t blow a lead if you never get one.
On a day that began with Aaron Boone announcing that he would at least be opening up the closer role, in the wake of Clay Holmes blowing an 11th save Tuesday night in a crushing loss, the Yankees never got a chance to find out who might get first dibs.
Marcus Stroman got hit around across an ineffective 3 ²/₃ innings, which instead relegated the bullpen to mop-up duty as the Yankees fell to the Rangers 10-6 on Wednesday night at Globe Life Field.
It was a 10-2 game entering the ninth before the Rangers helped the Yankees put lipstick on a pig.
They walked the bases loaded with two outs for Trent Grisham, who hit a grand slam off the right-field foul pole.
The Yankees then put runners on the corners and even forced Rangers closer Kirby Yates into the game to get Giancarlo Stanton to fly out to the left-field wall, where Wyatt Langford made a terrific leaping catch to rob him of a potential three-run homer.
While losing for the sixth time in their last eight games, the Yankees (80-60) also lost their third straight series entering Thursday’s off day before opening a weekend set against the Cubs at Wrigley Field on Friday.
After being two outs away from clinching the series victory on Tuesday, the Yankees turned in a lackluster effort on Wednesday, though they remained a half-game behind the Orioles (who fell to the White Sox) for first place in the AL East.
Stroman put the Yankees in a 5-0 hole by the time he departed in the fourth inning.
The right-hander had been solid over his last four starts (2.35 ERA) since getting pushed back in early August to work on his mechanics, but his struggles reemerged on Wednesday at a time when the Yankees are trying to whittle down to five starters and eventually figure out their best combination for October.
Stroman now has a 4.03 ERA across 27 starts this season.
Nathan Eovaldi, meanwhile, stifled the Yankee bats across seven strong innings.
The only damage came on Juan Soto’s two-run homer tucked inside the left-field foul pole in the top of the fifth — his 38th home run of the year — as Eovaldi otherwise cruised, allowing only four hits while walking three and striking out six.
Gleyber Torres and Soto combined to go 4-for-6 with three walks at the top of the lineup, but the rest of it combined to go just 1-for-26 with three walks before Grisham’s grand slam in the ninth.
The Rangers (67-73) got to Stroman for five runs on nine hits and a walk.
That began in a first inning in which Stroman had to throw 31 pitches to get three outs, though he kept it to a 1-0 deficit.
The bottom of the second began with Leody Taveras hitting a high pop-up to shallow center field, but Aaron Judge had to run a long way for it and could not come up with it as the ball fell for a double.
Ezequiel Duran, part of the package the Yankees sent to Texas in the Joey Gallo trade, followed with a double roped to right field to put the Rangers up 2-0.
But again Stroman stranded a pair of runners to keep the game within reach.
After a quick third inning, though, Stroman ran into trouble again in the fourth and could not get out of it.
He allowed back-to-back singles with one out, and then with two outs, Langford (who hit the walk-off grand slam off Holmes on Tuesday) roped a two-run double to the gap that made it 4-0.
Nathaniel Lowe followed with a single to score Langford for the 5-0 lead and knock Stroman out of the game.
Rather than seeing which high-leverage reliever might be cut out for ninth-inning duties, the Yankees spent the rest of the night rolling out a parade of lower-leverage relievers that extended the deficit.
After 1 ¹/₃ scoreless innings from Scott Effross, Tim Mayza loaded the bases with one out and was replaced by Mark Leiter Jr., who allowed all three of those runs to come in on a two-run double and a wild pitch.
Ron Marinaccio then let in two more runs in the seventh inning, and by the bottom of the eighth, Boone waved the white flag with a line change, pulling Judge, Soto and Alex Verdugo for a head start on Thursday’s day off.
