SAN DIEGO — The local boy made good, but it wasn’t enough.
After Spencer Jones put the Yankees ahead with a leadoff single in the top of the 10th against Padres flamethrower Mason Miller, his homecoming heroics got spoiled in the bottom of the frame.
Luis Campusano hit a walk-off two-run shot against Paul Blackburn to lift the Padres past the Yankees 3-2 in a playoff-like atmosphere on Friday night at a sold-out Petco Park.
Blackburn had not allowed a run in his last 13 ¹/₃ innings before Friday night, or a home run since July 29. But he picked a bad time to snap both streaks, leaving a first-pitch sinker over the heart of the plate with one out that Campusano crushed to left field to end it.
Jones had led off the top of the 10th with a single on Miller’s 100 mph fastball that put the Yankees up 2-1, but was later thrown out trying to steal third.
On a night when they lost Trent Grisham to a right hamstring injury, the Yankees (80-61) fell to four games back of the Rays for the division with 21 games to play, with the Red Sox moving within 3 ¹/₂ games of them for the top AL wild card.
Max Fried was sharp in his second start back from the injured list for a recurrence of his left elbow bone bruise, building up to 72 pitches across 5 ²/₃ innings of one-run ball. The left-hander pounded the strike zone, allowing him to be efficient and get deeper into the game despite the limited pitch count.
With the Yankees moving their pitching around to take advantage of off days Thursday and Monday, Will Warren piggybacked Fried for his second relief appearance of the season and was equally strong. The right-hander tossed 2 ¹/₃ scoreless innings, allowing just one base runner before handing off to David Bednar to start the bottom of the ninth.
But the Padres bullpen matched with zeroes in relief of Walker Buehler, including lefty Adrian Morejon and Miller — who were connected to the Yankees leading up to the trade deadline before both remained in San Diego. Morejon struck out the side in the eighth inning before Miller retired the side in the ninth with two more punchouts, one on a 102 mph heater to Cody Bellinger.
The Padres (74-67) then nearly won it in the bottom of the ninth when the winning run got to third on a double and a passed ball from Austin Wells. But Bednar struck out Austin Hays to send it to extras.
The Padres struck first on a play that ultimately led to Grisham exiting the game. Ty France led off the bottom of the second with a double and then moved to third on a sacrifice bunt. Xander Bogaerts came up with two outs and hit a 255-foot bloop to center field that Grisham, whose starting depth was 332 feet, could not track down in time, looking like he was unable to get into another gear.
The ball landed to put the Padres up 1-0 and after the inning ended, Grisham returned to the dugout and tapped a trainer on the back before going down the stairs with him to the clubhouse and not returning.
In the meantime, Ben Rice tied the game in the top of the third when he clobbered a 444-foot shot to the batter’s eye off Buehler. Rice’s 36th home run of the season was his second longest, trailing only a 447-footer last month in Baltimore.
Fried caught a slight break in the bottom of the third when Manny Machado hit a two-out single to left field and tried to stretch it into a double. He beat the throw there, but came off the bag briefly when popping up from his slide while Jazz Chisholm Jr. kept the tag on him, resulting in the third out of the inning.
That, in part, helped Fried go further than he did in his first start back from the IL last Saturday, when he threw 63 pitches across 3 ²/₃ innings against the Red Sox. His four-seam fastball velocity was down in that game, averaging 93.8 mph, but it ticked back up to 94.4 (closer to his season average of 95) on Friday.
Entering the game with two outs in the bottom of the sixth, Warren walked the first batter he faced on four pitches before settling in and single-handedly providing the bridge to the ninth inning.
