MILWAUKEE — The Brewers trotted out their young flamethrower Friday night, and the Yankees could not touch him.
Cam Schlittler turned the tables a night later and was just as unhittable as Jacob Misiorowski.
The only problem for Schlittler was that his lineup wasted plenty of chances to add on early before his bullpen blew a two-run lead late.
That combination made for a slow-motion train wreck, resulting in a brutal 4-3, 10-inning loss for the Yankees on Saturday night at American Family Field.
The Brewers (21-16) walked it off against Tim Hill, as William Contreras — who had tied the game in the bottom of the eighth with an RBI single off Camilo Doval — delivered a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to win it.
Ryan McMahon had given the Yankees (26-14) a 3-2 lead with a two-out, two-strike single up the middle in the top of the 10th, but Fernando Cruz quickly gave it up in the bottom half.
He issued a leadoff walk to Luis Rengifo, who was trying to lay down a sacrifice bunt, and in the process spiked a fastball to the backstop, allowing the automatic runner to take third.
Ex-Yankee Gary Sanchez came up next and lofted a fly ball to right-center field that the Brewers decided was too shallow to test Aaron Judge’s arm. But they got the tying run in on the next at-bat, as Jackson Chourio poked a slow grounder to José Caballero’s right, and after the shortstop had to slide for it and bobbled the backhand, he had no play.
Aaron Boone then called on the lefty Hill to face the left-handed hitting Brice Turang, who hit a chopper to the right of the mound.
Hill fielded it and had no shot of turning two, but unwisely tried to make a long throw to get the lead runner at third base, instead hitting Rengifo.
The hottest team in baseball a few days ago, the Yankees have now dropped three of their past four games.
After Schlittler delivered six shutout innings and left with a 2-0 lead, Brent Headrick immediately gave up his first home run of the year in the seventh before Doval allowed another run in the eighth.
Turang hit a two-out single off Doval, stole second base on the next pitch and then came around to score on Contreras’ single that tied the game 2-2.
David Bednar tossed a 1-2-3 bottom of the ninth, but the rest of the bullpen was not nearly as effective.
A night after getting shut out by Misiorowski and the Brewers bullpen, the Yankees went just 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine runners on base, giving their pitchers little margin for error.
They put runners on first and second with no outs in the second inning and could not score; loaded the bases with no outs in the fourth and only scored once; and then put runners on first and second with no outs in the eighth and could not score again. Much of that fell on Spencer Jones and Austin Wells, who each left five men on base
Paul Goldschmidt was responsible for staking the Yankees to a 2-0 lead, homering off lefty Kyle Harrison to lead off the game and then cashing in with a bases-loaded single in the fourth.
Schlittler limited the Brewers to just two singles while striking out six. He did not allow a base runner to reach second base all night as he lowered his ERA to a major league-best 1.35 through nine starts — four of which have been scoreless. Opponents are now hitting just .177 (34-for-192) against him.
Headrick relieved Schlittler to start the seventh inning and immediately served up his first home run of the season to former Yankee Jake Bauers, cutting the Yankees’ lead to 2-1.
The dependable lefty then walked the next batter, but rebounded by retiring the next three in order — with some help from a sliding catch by Jones (0-for-3, two strikeouts) in center field for the second out.
For the second straight start, the Yankees got a scare when Schlittler was hit by a comebacker — this one appearing more concerning than the last. There were two outs in the bottom of the first inning when William Contreras smoked a 108.5 mph chopper right back at Schlittler, nailing him in the left calf. But he eventually remained in the game and did not appear affected by it the rest of the way.
