Yankees blow it late with Clay Holmes sputtering again, waste Anthony Volpe’s 1st homer in 4-3 loss to Twins

NEW YORK — Statistically, the Yankees went into the weekend with the lowest bullpen ERA in the American League.

Realistically, Aaron Boone might have a brewing problem in the backend.

Clay Holmes, very shaky saving a win in Cleveland earlier in the week, blew Friday night’s game pitching in a setup role.

The Yankees wasted Anthony Volpe’s first career homer and Nestor Cortes matching a franchise record in coughing one up to the Twins.

Down two runs after six innings, the Twins pulled out a 4-3 win to make it two straight in a four-game series.

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The night before, Minnesota scored nine in the first and took the series opener 11-2.

On Friday, Cortes left after seven innings leading 3-2, but Boone opted to go with closer Holmes in the eighth inning instead of one of his setup relievers, Michael King or Wandy Peralta.

Didn’t work.

In his first outing since Holmes escaped a self-inflicted ninth-inning jam on Wednesday – the 2022 All-Star closer hit a batter and walked two before closing out a one-run win – he didn’t retire any of the first three hitters he faced.

Michael A. Taylor, the Twins’ No. 9 hitter, led off with a single, Byron Buxton followed with a walk and then Carlos Correa laced a double into the right field corner to drive in two runs that put Minnesota ahead.

Holmes has converted all four of his save opportunities this season, but he has a 5.40 ERA over seven outings.

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After the Yankees fell behind, they made a little noise in the ninth when Franchy Cordero hit a leadoff single off Twins closer Jhoan Duran, but Oswaldo Cabrera hit a double-play grounder to shortstop and pinch-hitter Willie Calhoun popped up to short to end the game.

In the Yankees first, Volpe got the crowd of 41,039 all fired up.

Out of the nine hole and into the leadoff spot for the second time, Volpe took ball one from Twins rookie starter Louie Varland, then belted a high fastball into the left-field seats for a 394-foot homer and 1-0 Yankees lead.

The crowd erupted again when Aaron Judge hit Varland’s next pitch into the right-field seats for a 404-foot homer.

The 2-0 lead stood until the sixth when Correa hit a one-out, nobody-on homer off Cortes to make it a 2-1 game.

The Yankees’ cushion was back to two runs in the bottom of the inning courtesy of a leadoff homer by Giancarlo Stanton off Varland, but Kyle Garlick took Cortes deep in the seventh with the bases empty to make it a 3-2 game.

Cortes held the Twins to two solo homers over seven innings to make it nine starts in a row allowing two or fewer runs dating to last Aug. 22. That ties a franchise record that was set by Art Ditmar in 1959, then matched by Michael Pineda in 2014 and Luis Severino from 2018-22.

Cortes allowed five hits, struck out seven, walked none and hit two batters in the no-decision.

NOTABLE

— Infielder DJ LeMahieu didn’t play for the third day in a row due to a sore quad, but was on deck to pinch-hit for Isiah Kiner-Falefa when the game ended.

LOOKING AHEAD

Saturday: Twins at Yankees, 1:05 p.m., YES. RHP Kenta Maeda (0-2, 4.09) vs. RHP Domingo German (0-1, 5.97).

Sunday: Twins at Yankees, 1:05 p.m., YES. RHP Pablo Lopez (1-0, 1.35) vs. RHP Gerrit Cole (3-0, 1.40).

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.