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If the first five games of the month represented any hope for the future, the Yankees delivered a reminder of the immediate past Thursday night.
A reminder that Carlos Rodon was one of the biggest disappointments of a season in which he had a lot of competition.
A reminder that the team’s offense, for much of this year, lacked punch and made any type of deficit insurmountable.
A reminder that Jasson Dominguez will not go undefeated, and a reminder that this season, barring a miracle, is over.
Rodon was booed on the mound and gathered momentum as the Yankees’ five-game winning streak was snapped by a 10-3 loss to the Tigers in front of 32,722 fans in the Bronx.
The Yankees (70-70) lost their second game in their last 10 games and lost seven games in the wild card race.
Big efforts, mostly from the kids and the rotation, put a distant playoff aspiration on the line, but another Rodon clunker brought up the realities surrounding that pipe dream.
The big southpaw was signed as the only obvious improvement over last season, a starter the Yankees brought in to put them on top.
He, with a lackluster offensive attack, instead helped bury the club.
After forearm and back issues kept Rodon from pitching until July, he returned without the elements that made him an All-Star the past two seasons.
Rodon’s ERA sits at 6.60 after 10 starts, with his club still waiting to see the often untouchable pitcher he has been in the past.
Rodon was hit hard and often in 3 ²/₃ of innings in which he allowed seven runs on eight hits.
Even several outs were crushed, with a few deep outs falling within yards of homers.
Spencer Torkelson made sure many of his swings went the distance.
The young slugger gave the Tigers a 2-0 lead with two hitters in the game with a home run that set the tone and wiped out hope.
Detroit kept adding from there, turning two hits and a sacrifice fly into two runs in the third, then prompting the first set of boos in the fourth inning with a double RBI from Tyler Nevin.
Matt Vierling’s single scored a sixth run and knocked Rodon out of the game.
The second pitch Randy Vasquez threw in relief became Torkelson’s second homer of the game, putting the Yankees in an 8-1 ditch they didn’t want to get out of.
Gleyber Torres homered in the second inning and Everson Pereira’s double in the fourth inning scored two goals.
The Yankees returned those two in the eighth inning, when Andy Ibanez fended off a two-run shot against Albert Abreu.
The offense was pretty quiet and ended with six hits against Eduardo Rodriguez and the Tigers’ bullpen.
Dominguez, the child prodigy who lost for the first time, went 0 of 3 with one walk, failing to register a hit for the first time in his six league games.
There will be better days ahead for “The Martian” and the prospects the Yankees are checking out in a losing September.
Thursday reminded that those days will definitely not come in October.
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