Struggling Yankees start July on sour note with loss to Reds

Facing Cincinnati closer Alexis Diaz in the ninth, the Yankees’ best hope, as it often does, was waiting for Aaron Judge to get to the plate.Unfortunately for the Yankees, they needed two batters to reach base to get to Judge — who is making up most of their offense these days.But Trent Grisham struck out looking, pinch-hitter Austin Wells flied to right and the slumping Anthony Volpe popped out to end a 5-4 loss in front of another big crowd in The Bronx.With the loss, the Yankees have dropped six of their past eight and nine of their past 12.They had hoped to have put a subpar June behind them Sunday by closing out the month with a win in Toronto that featured Gerrit Cole’s best performance since returning from the IL.But the same worrying trends that have hurt the Yankees for much of the last month were evident again Tuesday.Luis Gil had a third straight ugly outing, unable to get an out in the fifth inning, part of what’s been a growing rough patch for much of the rotation.Still, after being down by five runs in the fifth inning, the Yankees came back with three in the sixth before Judge’s onslaught continued with another homer an inning later that brought them to within a run.But the Yankees didn’t get another base runner the rest of the game.It made the starting pitching woes more pronounced, as no Yankees starter has pitched more than five innings since Nestor Cortes tossed seven innings against Atlanta on June 23.Tuesday, Gil showed some improvement from his previous two disasters, when he’d allowed 12 runs in just 5 ²/₃ innings.This time, after a walk to Jonathan India to start the game, Gil retired the next nine batters.But Elly De La Cruz snapped the streak with a leadoff triple to right in the fourth.It led to the game’s first run, as De La Cruz scored when Jeimer Candelario followed with an RBI groundout to second.That was followed by back-to-back walks before Nick Martini flied out to deep right-center.

With runners on the corners...