Yankees waste Aaron Judge’s pair of homers, lose to Blue Jays on Bo Bichette’s walk-off home run

DUNEDIN, Fla. — Aaron Judge had two homers on Wednesday. The problem is so did Bo Bichette. The Blue Jays shortstop homered off Chad Green to lead off the bottom of the ninth to end the game with a 5-4 loss for the Yankees.

The Yankees lost their second straight series and went 2-4 on the road trip.

Judge hammered his first homer, his first of the road trip, in his first at-bat. He crushed his second of the game in the third, this time going to right-center field. It was his 11th career multi-home run game and the first since Aug. 2, 2020. The Yankees are 9-2 in games in which Judge hits two homers.

Gio Urshela’s two-run single was the Yankees only other offense. The Yankees went 1 for 16 with a walk over the last five innings against the Blue Jays bullpen.

Corey Kluber went just four innings Wednesday. The veteran righty gave up three runs on six hits. He gave up a two-run shot to Alejandro Kirk in the second and a solo shot to Bichette in the third. Kluber walked two and struck out four.

It’s a recurring problem four days a week with the Yankees. Gerrit Cole has dominated and saved the Yankees bullpen, the rest of the rotation has struggled. That has put extra stress on the relievers. The other four starters have made nine starts, pitching a total of 36 2/3 innings (Jordan Montgomery accounts for 11 of them), while Cole has pitched into the sixth inning in each start for a total 18 1/3 in three starts alone. Montgomery is the only other Yankees starter to have given them six innings in a start.

The pitchers not named Cole have allowed 28 runs on 48 hits and are 1-4.

The Yankees bullpen has been one of the few highlights this season. When Lucas Luetge gave up a home run Wednesday night to the Blue Jays, it snapped a 14-inning streak of scoreless baseball by the Yankees pen. They went into Wednesday’s game with 1.84 ERA, the best in the big leagues.

They had also pitched the second most innings (49) in the American League behind the A’s and the third most in the majors.