Luis Severino brought his usual toolbox to the mound Sunday night.
It included the fastball that routinely hits 97 mph and a darting slider, two pitches that for several years have had the Yankees dreaming of a future ace.
But there also were the mistakes.
There weren’t as many as in his five previous starts this season, but enough to beat him and the Yankees.
Though he struck out a season-high nine in 6 2⁄3 innings, Severino allowed three home runs in a 5-1 loss to the Red Sox, who received a brilliant three-hitter from knuckleballer Steven Wright in front of 41,869 at the Stadium.
Wright became the first Boston pitcher with a nine-inning complete-game win against the Yankees since Jon Lester on July 3, 2008.
Severino, 22, who came in 0-4 with a 6.31 ERA, allowed four runs and five hits, two of them homers by David Ortiz.
Dustin Pedroia’s two-run blast in the first inning left the Yankees (11-18) with a 2-0 deficit. Ortiz added solo shots in the fourth and seventh innings against Severino.
Xander Bogaerts’ solo shot in the eighth off struggling lefty Chasen Shreve made it 5-0.
Wright lost his shutout when Brett Gardner hit his third homer of the season with two outs in the ninth.
Though the 40-year-old Ortiz, slated to retire after the season, continued in his role as the top Yankee-killer of this generation, the star for the Red Sox (18-13) was Wright.
The 31-year-old righthander (3-3, 1.52 ERA) was masterful as the teams sailed to the finish line in 2 hours, 27 minutes. Wright walked one and struck out seven.
The Yankees managed one hit in the first six innings against Wright, who needed only 60 pitches to navigate the stretch, and didn’t get a runner in scoring position until Starlin Castro led off the seventh with a double.
Castro tagged and went to third on Brian McCann’s fly to right but was picked off during Mark Teixeira’s ensuing at-bat.
Severino began the game by walking Mookie Betts on four pitches. With the count full against Pedroia, Severino came in high with a 97-mph fastball and the righthanded-hitting second baseman took it the other way, sending a drive into the first row of seats in right just over a leaping Carlos Beltran for his fifth homer of the season.
Severino had it all working in the second, striking out the side. He got Travis Shaw looking at a 91-mph slider, Brock Holt looking at a 97-mph fastball and Jackie Bradley Jr. looking at a 96-mph fastball.
Severino retired nine straight after Pedroia’s homer, seven of them on strikeouts. But Ortiz emphatically broke that streak, obliterating a 1-and-2, 97-mph fastball and sending it over the Yankees’ bullpen in right-center to make it 3-0.
Severino allowed a one-out single to Bradley in the fifth but saw him erased when Ryan Hanigan hit into a 4-6-3 double play.
A perfect sixth followed, but Severino would not get out of the seventh.
Ortiz led off by crushing a 1-and-0 fastball, which came in at 94 mph, to right for his ninth homer. That gave him 12 homers in his last 29 games against the Yankees.
Bogaerts then homered off Shreve in the eighth.
..... - Newsday