Yankees bats suffocated by Seth Lugo in loss to Royals

The Yankees at least avoided the ignominy of a perfect game.

But that was about all they had going for them on a night when they did not touch second base.

Former Met Seth Lugo was in complete command, dominating the Yankees across seven shutout innings to lift the Royals to a 5-0 win on Tuesday night in The Bronx.

Lugo allowed just three hits, all of them singles and two of them bloops by Gleyber Torres. He did not walk a batter, struck out 10 and only entered two three-ball counts all night while keeping the Yankees off balance with 10 different pitches.

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In between soft singles by Torres (in the first and sixth innings), Lugo retired 17 straight batters as he cruised in what could be a potential playoff preview.

“That was probably as good a performance against us this year [as any pitcher’s had],” manager Aaron Boone said. “We were silent. He was ahead in the count, looked like he was really dotting location-wise with a big mix. … Got a lead, ahead in the count, not making a lot of mistakes, was off our barrel and had some swing-and-miss in there, too.”

The Yankees (83-62) rolled out a lineup that looked like one of the most potent they had used all year — with Jasson Dominguez starting in left field over Alex Verdugo — but it did not make any noise while striking out a combined 14 times.

By the end of the night, the Yankees saw their AL East lead trimmed to a half-game by the Orioles with 17 games left to play.

“We aren’t paying attention to that,” said Juan Soto, who had the Yankees’ hardest-hit ball of the night, a flyout to left in the sixth inning. “We’re really focused on what we can do here. We’re trying to win games and that’s all that matters. We don’t care what they do, win or loss — good for them. But we’re focused on what we can do every game here.”

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Coming off a clunker against the Rangers last week, Marcus Stroman was better, if still not his sharpest.

The right-hander, who is trying to maintain his rotation spot with the Yankees set to send one starter to the bullpen by next week, gave up three runs on seven hits and two walks across 5 ¹/₃ innings.

Mark Leiter Jr. (on a solo home run by Tommy Pham) and Tim Mayza each gave up a run behind Stroman to give the Royals (80-66) some breathing room, though they did not need it on a night when Lugo was suffocatingly good.

“Lugo’s been nasty all year,” said Stroman, who was teammates with him on the Mets. “I’ve played with him, he’s pretty incredible. He fills it up with a ton of different pitches and he pitches pretty aggressively, so he’s hard to barrel up.”

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On most nights this season, the Yankees have usually been able to count on Aaron Judge and Soto to be a source of production. But the duo combined to go 0-for-8 with four strikeouts, extending a quiet 14-game stretch for each — Judge is 10-for-51 with 11 walks and no home runs while Soto is 11-for-52 with nine walks.

Besides Torres, Austin Wells had the Yankees’ only other hit on the night, a line-drive single off Lugo in the seventh.

“It’s tough with a guy who has like nine pitches and he was showing every pitch today,” Soto said. “He was throwing everything, he was confident about it and he just kept us off-balance.”

The Yankees got to Lugo for four runs across seven innings back in June at Kauffman Stadium, but could not repeat that performance on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Salvador Perez continued to have a big series for the Royals. He drove in two more runs off Stroman on Tuesday, improving to 6-for-7 with five RBIs through the first two games of a three-game set.

“You feel like [Perez] can get to every pitch,” Stroman said. “You almost feel like you’re just better off throwing the ball down the middle sometimes. You do your best job to throw it off the plate and execute and he still finds a way to get a hit. He’s incredible. I think he’s one of the best catchers of all time.”

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