CINCINNATI — On a 92-degree evening, Yankees spot starter Allan Winans looked like the coolest customer at Great American Ball Park on Monday.
Winans, a 29-year-old former Mets farmhand, blanked the Reds on just 24 pitches over the first three innings in his Yankees debut.
But the Reds put up three runs in the fourth against the soft-tossing righty, who ended up lasting just 4 1⁄3 innings. He was charged with four runs.
Winans got the loss, but the real culprit in the Yankees’ 6-1 defeat to the Reds was the offense, which was as ugly as the air was soupy.
The Yankees went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, left nine men on base and struck out 13 times.
Over their last 12 games, the Yankees are batting .167 with RISP. Their .391 OPS with RISP during that span ranks last in the majors.
“Baseball,” Aaron Boone said. “You’re going to have those stretches. I think overall, we’ve been pretty good in those areas. I thought tonight our best at-bats were getting on base or putting the pressure on, and then they had us swinging-and-missing when we had really good opportunities to score. That’s where we want to be a little better.”
Aaron Judge hit his 28th home run, a solo shot in the first, much to the delight of the many Yankees fans in the crowd of 31,418.
But Judge also didn’t come through in one of the biggest at-bats of the game as Reds manager Terry Francona — the former Red Sox skipper back in a big-league dugout after taking time off for health reasons — aggressively piloted the game like it was Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS or something (sorry, Yankees fans).
The Reds were leading 3-1 in the fifth when Judge came up against lefthander Nick Lodolo with runners on first and second. Judge had already gone 398 feet into the second deck in left and another 398 feet for an out to center against Lodolo.
Francona brought in high-leverage righthander Scott Barlow, who hadn’t entered a game earlier than the sixth inning since May 23. Barlow got Judge on a fly ball to shallow center — this one 239 feet — and struck out Giancarlo Stanton to end the threat.
That was a theme for the evening. The Yankees got runners on, the Yankees didn’t bring them home . . . 100% of the time.
“I’ve got to get the job done there,” Judge said. “We had some opportunities. We just couldn’t capitalize. Gotta switch that up [Tuesday].”
Trailing 4-1 in the eighth, the Yankees got the first two men on against Tony Santillan. Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. then both struck out and Anthony Volpe (who saw his torpedo bat fly through the air twice on Monday on swings-and-misses) grounded out to first.
Winans was filling in for Ryan Yarbrough, who is on the injured list with an oblique strain. If Marcus Stroman’s rehab start with Double-A Somerset on Tuesday goes well, Winans could be back in the minors soon.
Staked to a 1-0 lead on Judge’s home run, Winans struck out the first big-league batter he had faced since he was with Atlanta in 2024 when TJ Friedl swung through an 82.2-mile per hour changeup.
Winans faced the minimum nine in the first three innings, allowing only an infield single to Spencer Steer in the second.
In the fourth, however, Winans hit Matt McLain with a 2-and-1 pitch with one out. Elly De La Cruz (3-for-4, three RBIs) followed with an RBI triple over the leaping try of Cody Bellinger in center and then scored on Steer’s sacrifice fly to left to give the Reds a 2-1 lead.
Gavin Lux made it 3-1 with a home run to rightfield.
Winans was removed with runners on first and third and one out in the fifth. Ian Hamilton allowed the first inherited runner to score on a single by De La Cruz before getting out of the jam. De La Cruz, who also hit a solo homer off Tim Hill in the eighth, finished a double shy of the cycle.
Winans, a 2018 Mets draft pick who the Yankees claimed off waivers from Atlanta on Jan. 23, allowed five hits, hit two batters and struck out one.
“A couple hit-by-pitches and a couple of middle-middle fastballs,” Winans said. “Kind of would like those back a little bit.”
Trevino lovefest
Boone presented beloved former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino with his 2024 AL championship ring before the game.
When Austin Wells stepped in for the first time with his former teammate behind the plate, the two exchanged words.
What did Wells say?
“That I loved him,” Wells said.
And what did Trevino say?
“That he loved me.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.