Yankees Takeaways: Weathers' Poor Start leads to Rout Against Tigers

THE BRONX, NY --- The Yankees lost 7-3 to the Tigers in the series opener. It was an ugly game. The Yankees were out of it early and never recovered from a poor start to the game.

Ryan Weathers' Start

Ryan Weathers did not last through the second inning in this one. Weathers gave up seven hits and five runs (only two earned) in the outing. There were five hard-hit balls registered against him.

The Yankees have struggled in this stretch of games, and Weathers gave them no chance today. There was an infield error that led to three Tigers runs, but Weathers did not help himself with his inability to get outs in the game. The average exit velocity against Weathers in the outing was 96.5, which is high.

The Offense and Defense

The positive: the team had a hit before the fifth inning tonight.

The negative: the Yankees' offense is still in a major slump. Spencer Jones recorded the Yankees' first hit, a leadoff double in the third inning, but he did not move from second base. The Yankees did not record another hit until the eighth inning, also by Jones.

The Yankees struck out ten times in seven innings and did not walk today against Tigers starter Casey Mize. They were able to get to Mize last week in Detroit, but tonight he was dominant.

The source of Yankee runs came on a pinch-hit three-run home run off the bat of Amed Rosario. Rosario had been slumping against left-handed pitching as of late, but he got one just over the wall for a three-run shot to make the score look a little more respectable.

Of note: Ben Rice is 4 for his last 39 and 0-4 tonight. He has not had a hit since last Wednesday against Tarik Skubal, who the Yankees will face tomorrow.

The Yankees' defense was also not sharp today. They had more errors than hits in this game, one by Jose Caballero in the second inning and one by Cody Bellinger in the fourth inning.

The Caballero error was on a ground ball. The play should have been made, even though the run would have scored, but an out needed to be recorded. It's simple plays like these that cost their starting pitchers pitches. While Weathers was getting hit hard, this likely cost Weathers from going deeper into the game and the trickle-down effect with the bullpen.

The Bellinger E7 is very uncharacteristic for him. Normally, every ball hit in his direction, the play is made. This one did not land in his glove and resulted in two bases for Dingler. You know the team is really going through it on a defensive slump if Bellinger is committing errors. He is normally one of the more sure-handed defenders in the game.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. Injury

In a game that was virtually over, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jasson Dominguez collided on a pop-up, resulting in Chisholm Jr. needing to be removed from the game.

It was Dominguez' ball all the way, but it appeared that Dominguez never called off Chisholm Jr., which resulted in the collision The Yankees announced in the top of the eighth inning that Chisholm Jr. "was removed from tonight’s game after colliding with Jasson Domínguez. He was examined by Dr. Christopher Ahmad and is currently going through concussion protocol."

The Yankees really can't suffer any further losses to their offense, so the hope is that things are not as bad as they look for Chisholm Jr.

This story will be updates postgame