Aaron Judge blast not enough as Yankees stumble against Rays

At least for a few minutes Sunday afternoon, Aaron Judge woke up Yankee Stadium.

His 35th home run of the season, a three-run shot in the seventh inning, briefly gave the crowd of 45,178 something to cheer about on a day filled with frustration and a dash of apathy.

But it was only a temporary reprieve.

The Yankees offered another tease in the ninth inning, when they got Judge to the plate as the potential tying run, but the comeback ended there as they stumbled through a second straight loss to the Rays, 6-4.

The Yankees (59-42) spent the first four innings Sunday trying to see how many runners they could put on base without scoring.

They loaded the bases with one out in each of the first two innings and did not score, then stranded two more runners in scoring position in the fourth before fittingly leaving a runner on third to end the game.

“Just trying to do too much,” Judge said. “We’re two games now out of first in our division. We got some work to do, but I think it’s just about trying to simplify it, don’t listen to outside noise and take care of what we can inside this room.”

The Rays (50-49) held the Yankees to 2-for-10 with runners in scoring position as they stranded nine runners.

That, along with Marcus Stroman and the bullpen giving up four home runs, resulted in the Yankees’ 20th loss in their last 29 games.

“It’s kind of like football — I feel like we’re stopping the run, we’re getting third-and-long and we just got to find a way to break through,” said manager Aaron Boone, who was ejected after the sixth inning for arguing balls and strikes. “Obviously this is about a month where we’ve struggled winning ballgames and we got to find a way right now.”

Judge finally cashed in for a 444-foot homer in the seventh that trimmed the Rays’ lead to 5-3, with Austin Wells following with a single.

But Gleyber Torres, whose fielding error led to an unearned run earlier in the game, grounded into an inning-ending double play.

In the ninth, Juan Soto doubled home Ben Rice with one out to bring up Judge as the potential tying run.

But Pete Fairbanks got him to fly out to center before Wells struck out looking to end the game.

“This offense was incredible for that first 60 games, 70 games,” said Stroman, who gave up three runs (two earned) across 5 ¹/₃ innings. “It’s hard to be incredible for 162.”

Rays right-hander Shane Baz tried to give the Yankees some help during his 3 ¹/₃ ineffective innings, though he somehow left without allowing a run.

In each of the first two innings, the Yankees loaded the bases with one out, only to come up empty both times.

In the first inning, Torres flew out to left field, too shallow to try scoring Soto from third, before the scuffling Alex Verdugo lined out to first base.

Then in the second, Soto worked a 3-0 count, got the green light and swung at a fastball at the top of the zone that turned into a 3-6-1 double play to end the inning.

Baz led off the fourth by walking Anthony Volpe and Trent Grisham, who then took second and third on a double steal with one out.

But lefty reliever Garrett Cleavinger stranded them there by striking out Rice and getting Soto to fly out to center.

“This isn’t the kind of ball we’re accustomed to playing or we want to play,” said Verdugo, who sank deeper into a 16-for-112 (.143) slump over his last 28 games. “Whether it’s a team that wins the World Series or not, you have ups and downs throughout a year you can look at. This is one of those ones where we’ve been tested, we’ve been hit hard and we’re still kind of crawling our way out of it.”