In various ways on Saturday afternoon, the Yankees couldn’t finish off the Giants.
At the plate and on the mound, the Yankees threw knockout punches that never landed in a 7-5 loss in front of 41,642 in The Bronx, which set up Sunday as a rubber match in the first series of the season.
A ninth-inning rally fell short, Clarke Schmidt let too many Giants hitters hang in at-bats, and neither the Yankees’ defense nor their bullpen could capitalize on enough advantages. Too many disappointments on big pitches — the Yankees’ staff threw 185 on the day — spoiled an afternoon on which Giancarlo Stanton launched his first home run of the season and Anthony Volpe connected on his first two career hits.
In the ninth, the Yankees scored once against flame-throwing closer Camilo Doval and loaded the bases for Stanton. With dark clouds threatening and the atmosphere ominous, Stanton grounded sharply to shortstop, which began a game-ending double play.
The Giants then scored the go-ahead run on a swinging bunt from LaMonte Wade Jr. King induced the lightest contact a pitcher could want, but both he and catcher Jose Trevino sprinted toward the ball and no one covered home, which made everyone safe.
San Francisco pushed one more run across with two outs in the inning, when former Yankee Thairo Estrada hit a line drive that Volpe appeared to misread off the bat. The rookie shortstop took a step to his right, then went left and sprawled out for an awkward dive, the ball falling for another infield single that scored another run to make it 5-3.
The Yankees used a cloud-scraping home run from Josh Donaldson to cut the lead to one in the eighth — but the Giants scored two runs off Clay Holmes in the ninth to balloon back the edge.
Until the ninth, which ended with a thud, the Yankees’ best threat might have come in the fifth, when they briefly tied the game but couldn’t steal the lead back.
In the inning, DJ LeMahieu lofted a lazy fly ball to center that Yastrzemski couldn’t find, the ball falling behind him and LeMahieu getting credited with a double. Aaron Judge smacked a single to left, and Anthony Rizzo followed with an RBI double to right to make it 3-3.
But with runners on second and third and no outs, Stanton grounded out, Donaldson struck out and Gleyber Torres tapped out.
The Yankees had taken the lead in the first inning, when Judge singled, Rizzo walked and Stanton lined a bullet that pitcher Alex Cobb nicely stabbed — then poorly threw into center field while trying to jump-start a double play. Judge came around to score on the error.
The lead stretched to 2-0 in the third, when Stanton lasered a homer to right, but Schmidt could not finish off enough hitters to keep the lead intact.
Schmidt battled for 3 ¹/₃ innings but lost too many of those battles. The 27-year-old, coming off a strong spring that featured a new cutter, consistently was ahead of Giants batters but consistently could not put them away.
Schmidt, who needed 76 pitches to record 10 outs, was charged with three runs, the first of which was scored on the 10th pitch of an at-bat. In the fourth inning, Schmidt could not find strike three in a long duel with Joc Pederson, who found a sweeper low and in the middle of the plate and golfed it to right field for a homer.
After Yastrzemski followed with a double, Schmidt fell behind 3-0 to Brandon Crawford, who got the green light. Gerrit Cole’s brother-in-law blistered a down-the-middle cutter for a two-run homer to give the Giants a 3-2 lead.
The Yankees had enough punch to retake the lead, but their knockout punches continually whiffed.
