Yankees bats go cold after hot start in loss to A’s

After seven pitches from Luis Severino and before they had recorded one out, the Yankees had tallied three hits and scored one run.

Over the next 153 pitches from Severino and four relievers, the Yankees recorded 27 outs and added just one hit — a fourth-inning single from Amed Rosario erased by a double play.

In the early weeks of the season, the Yankees have so often found a way, typically producing a timely hit that would swing a game in their direction.

On this night, that hit never arrived.

The Yankees bats made like the weather and froze, applying too much pressure to a bullpen that eventually cracked when David Bednar allowed the go-ahead run in the ninth in what became a 3-2 loss to the A’s in front of 38,147 shivering fans in The Bronx on Wednesday.

“That’s just baseball,” J.C. Escarra said. “We’ve had a lot of good games offensively. Today wasn’t one of them.”

The Yankees (8-3), who have fallen by one run in each of their losses, would have to take the rubber game Thursday afternoon to win a fourth series in as many tries this season.

The losing pitcher was Bednar, who had thrown 14 pitches to record a save Tuesday and could not pitch his way out of danger as he has so often.

After excellent, shutdown work from Tim Hill, Camilo Doval and Brent Headrick, the closer allowed hard contact to Nick Kurtz for a single and Shea Langeliers for a double before Brent Rooker lofted a sacrifice fly to score the go-ahead run.

In the bitter cold and after plenty of work in the World Baseball Classic, Bednar’s velocity has dipped a bit.

“I think once we get rolling into this, he’ll be fine,” manager Aaron Boone said of a closer who was not the problem.

The problem was an offense that went silent. Nos. 4-9 in the order went 1-for-20.

Of particular note were Ben Rice (0-for-4 with four strikeouts) and Ryan McMahon (0-for-3 with a walk, two strikeouts and a double play that drew boos).

“Mac’s a good major league hitter,” Boone said of McMahon. “We’re 10 games in. … He’ll get it rolling.”

The Yankees got to old friend Severino immediately but never again.

In a long bottom of the first, the Yankees strung three hits together and scored quickly, the seventh pitch a looper down the left field line from Cody Bellinger. Later in the frame, Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked to load the bases before Escarra drew his own walk to push a second run across.

Rosario struck out with the bases loaded on Severino’s 32nd pitch, and Yankees hitters were not heard from again.

“The story was we just didn’t score when we had a chance to throw a knockout punch early,” Boone said after the Yankees went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position against Severino and wasted their few chances, including inning-ending double plays in the second (off Aaron Judge’s bat) and fourth (McMahon).

Severino walked Trent Grisham to begin his fifth and final inning, but bounced back and struck out Judge and later Rice, roaring off the Yankee Stadium mound like it was 2017.

“He’s got great stuff and he didn’t flinch,” Boone said of Severino.

Will Warren (4 ²/₃ innings, two runs on five hits and three walks while striking out five) was not sharp but kept the Yankees around.

Both runs the righty allowed came in the fourth, when the team that used to be from Oakland put together a two-out rally. Consecutive singles from Lawrence Butler, Max Muncy and Jeff McNeil — the last a shot through the left side of the infield that resulted in Butler diving home just ahead of a throw from Bellinger — scored one run. After Warren walked No. 9 hitter Carlos Cortes to load the bases, he dirted a curveball that bounced off Escarra, the wild pitch tying the game.

The best potential Yankees rally late arrived in the seventh, when a pair of walks brought Bellinger to the plate with two outs. He swung through a curveball and spiked his bat into the dirt.

“Couldn’t break through,” Boone said, “and then they held us down.”