JUST IN: Bombers away! Yankees club four solo home runs in shocking win over White Sox

NEW YORK – While Brad Keller struggled against the Yankees, White Sox hitters struck out a season-high 16 times.

The outcome? A disheartening 6-1 defeat at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, marking the Sox’s second loss in the first two games of the series, dropping their record to 14-32.

Keller, stepping in after Michael Soroka was moved to the bullpen, surrendered a career-high four home runs, including two to Juan Soto. Giancarlo Stanton and Jose Trevino also homered, giving the Yankees, who have won 12 of their last 14 games and lead the AL with a 32-15 record, a 5-1 lead by the third inning.

The Sox had an opportunity against Luis Gil in the first inning when Andrew Benintendi’s check-swing double scored Tommy Pham and Paul DeJong’s walk loaded the bases, but Korey Lee struck out, the first of his three strikeouts in the game.

“That was a critical inning for us because we needed to score multiple runs,” Grifol said. “We didn’t.

“We have to do a better job putting the ball in play.”

Gil recorded 14 strikeouts, setting a Yankees rookie record, surpassing the 13 strikeouts by former Sox pitcher Orlando Hernández on August 13, 1998, who threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Keller entered the game with a 2.84 ERA in four appearances.

“You’ve got to keep the ball in the park,” Keller said. “That’s true in any ballpark. Fortunately, they were solo shots, but no one wants to give up home runs, especially not four in one game.”

Keller mentioned his pitches felt good, but he “made some mistakes.” He allowed seven hits and one walk in four-plus innings, struck out four, and said he didn’t notice Soto admiring his second homer and flipping his bat.

“I was more frustrated with the pitch and giving up a second homer in that situation,” he said.

Soroka much better

Soroka relieved Keller and recorded a season-high seven strikeouts over four scoreless innings in just his second career relief appearance. What did this performance reveal to him?

“That I have it,” said the former Braves All-Star, who had a 6.39 ERA in nine starts. “I knew it was still there. I saw glimpses of it at the end of last year. It’s a different game when I know I have mid-90s [velocity] in the tank instead of reaching back for [92 and 93 mph]. It puts a hitter on their heels and makes everything more effective.”

Ramos progressing

A day after being placed on the 10-day IL (retroactive to May 15), Bryan Ramos ran sprints in the outfield and took ground balls. He will head to Triple-A Charlotte for a rehab assignment within the next day or two and could return from his left quad strain as early as next Saturday.

“We thought it was going to be 3-5 days, it’s looking more like three than five,” Grifol said.

Ramos, who batted .281/.294/.344 with two doubles and played solid defense in 10 games after being called up from Double-A Birmingham, showed promise.

“There is a level of confidence that he’s going to be heading down there with,” Grifol said. “It’s going to be interesting to see, he performed really well at the big league level. Go down there, get right, do the rehab and get back up.

“It didn’t look like he was fazed in any facet of the game. Baserunning, defense, I mean he played good baseball.”