Byron Buxton homers in return, but remade Twins pitching staff falters in loss to Yankees

NEW YORK — So much was different about the Twins on Monday night. Byron Buxton homered, a reminder of what they’ve been missing. And Luke Keaschall didn’t hit, didn’t get on base, didn’t keep making history.

One thing was business as usual, though: The New York Yankees won 6-2 at Yankee Stadium.

“It never ends,” Buxton said, shaking his head.

Buxton, who returned from the injured list Monday, knows better than any of his current teammates, having played 17 games here in his career, 14 of them losses. Which is only a slice of the Twins’ sad history here: 13-42 overall, including the postseason, and 5-30 since 2015.

This time, Buxton and Trevor Larnach homered, but Twins starter Zebby Matthews allowed three solo home runs and reliever Erasmo Ramírez a fourth. No, none of them were to Aaron Judge, “but the guys behind him did a good job putting some swings on it, too,” Matthews said.

The game was particularly frustrating to Buxton — who has watched the Twins rally around one another since the front office sent away 10 players at the trade deadline, and was eager to take part, too. His sixth-inning home run into the left-field seats, No. 24 of the season, was the spark he hoped would ignite another comeback win.

“To be able to jump into this exciting lineup, it’s fun. I was just trying to get something jump-started,” Buxton said. “In the dugout, it was really feeding off each other — like, ‘All right, let’s get going, you got it started, Buck.’ But their guy was good. Real good. Didn’t leave us much.”

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Their guy was Will Warren (7-5), a second-year righthander who has saved an injury-hampered Yankees rotation with solid pitching, particularly at home.

“Probably the most underrated, nasty guy we’ve faced all year,” Larnach grumbled. “I got the only cookie he threw.”

He did and drove it into the second deck in right field, his 16th of the year, ending Warren’s night in the seventh inning, having allowed only three hits.

None of them were to Keaschall, whose 11-game hitting streak and 12-game on-base streak to start his big-league career ended with a strikeout and two fly outs, his first 0-fer game. Keaschall was waiting on deck for a fourth at-bat when Ryan Jeffers struck out against David Bednar to end the game.

That’s sort of what Matthews (3-4) did, too. He pitched with a runner on base only three times all night and never allowed any of them to score. He retired the first two hitters in all six innings he pitched.

But solo home runs by Cody Bellinger, Giancarlo Stanton and Ben Rice, the 3-4-5 hitters in the Yankee lineup, were enough to hand him his fourth loss despite matching his career high with nine strikeouts. Jazz Chisholm Jr. later connected off Ramírez.