After a five-day layoff, the Yankees finally were back on the field Wednesday.
Not much went right.
The Yankees were swept by the Atlanta Braves in a doubleheader, losing the first game, 5-1, before falling, 2-1, in Game 2 at Truist Park in Atlanta.
Their offense didn't show up either game, and the Yankees have now lost five straight.
Masahiro Tanaka was stellar in Game 2 before being taken out after just 66 pitches, but Chad Green surrendered a two-run home run to Freddie Freeman in the sixth inning that spoiled the performance and sent the Yankees to a loss.
Tyler Wade's sacrifice fly off Braves starter represented their only run.
In the first game, Luke Voit's solo home run was the only hit the Yankees mustered up off Ian Anderson, a 22-year-old making his major league debut.
In a game where Gerrit Cole struggled, they couldn't provide him with any run support.
After coming off the injured list on Tuesday, Aaron Judge started in Game 2 and went 1 for 3.
Manager Aaron Boone said Judge, who was on the IL with a strained right calf, "tightened up" while running from first to second in the fourth inning.
But he played five innings in right field before he was taken out of the game.
Game 1 was was the Yankees' first game since Thursday after their weekend series against the Mets was postponed because of two positive coronavirus tests within the Mets' traveling party, and then their series opener against the Braves on Tuesday was rained out.
Wednesday's doubleheader kicked off a challenging stretch of games for the Yankees, who will have three twin bills in a stretch of five days.
They'll play their final 35 games over the final 33 days of the season.
"It's been a challenging year for everyone," Boone said before the game. "We all know that. You've got to be able to continue to roll with the punches and stay in the athletic position. There's been a lot of unexpected things around every corner and you've got to be able to handle them and still go out and be able to effectively do your job and do what it takes to win ball games."
Coming off six-run (five earned), four-inning outing against the Tampa Bay Rays last week, Tanaka needed a strong performance on Wednesday.
He said a day earlier that he used the Yankees' layoff to work on his mechanics.
Whatever adjustments he made appeared to have worked.
In five scoreless innings, Tanaka gave up three hits while not walking a batter and striking out four.
After allowing a single to Ronald Acuna Jr. with two outs in the third, Tanaka retired the final seven batters he faced before Boone brought in Green.
Cole isn't accustomed to losing.
Entering Wednesday, the right-hander had won 20 consecutive starts, and had gone 28 outings without suffering a loss.
Both streaks came to a crashing end against the Braves.
Making his first outing since Aug. 19 when he expressed displeasure at Boone for taking him out of the game in the seventh inning against the Tampa Bay Rays, Cole had a different reason to be frustrated on Wednesday.
In five-plus innings, Cole allowed five runs on five hits with two walks and nine strikeouts.
Cole yielded a home run to Acuna to start the game, and then surrendered a two-run shot to Dansby Swanson and a solo homer to Marcell Ozuna in the third inning.
Cole wasn't overly concerned by the outing, saying the Braves simply put good swings on some of his pitches and took advantage of some missed spots at times.
"Seemed to be a little bit feast or famine in terms of good command for a period of time and then some bad command in bad spots," Cole said. "Times when I thought they were going to be aggressive and they were patient, times when I thought maybe I could grab some more of the zone in some situations and they were being aggressive in those situations. Just didn't match up and they stayed one step ahead of me too many times."
