There have been games in which the Yankees could not convert opportunities.
There have been games in which the big hit has not arrived.
There have been games in which too many crushed batted balls found gloves.
This was not one of those games.
Wednesday presented what has become a rarity for the best-scoring offense in the American League: a dud.
The Yankees offense got nothing going in a five-hit shutout — just the second time this season they have not crossed home plate — falling 4-0 at the hands of the Guardians in front of 36,759 mostly bored fans in The Bronx.
After dropping just their third contest in the past 10, the Yankees (37-23) will look to take the rubber game of the series Thursday night behind Max Fried.
Even a perfect Clarke Schmidt would not have been a winner, and Schmidt was not perfect in allowing three runs in the first.
He bounced back and got through 5 ²/₃ innings without allowing another run, but the Yankees offense could not make his resilience matter, particularly against opposing starter Luis Ortiz.
“He’s got good stuff. It’s a good arm,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Ortiz, who shut down the Yankees over 5 ²/₃ innings with high-90s heat and a slider he leaned on heavily.
Before a threat (and nothing more) in the ninth, the Yankees only created one at-bat with a runner in scoring position.
They ground into three double plays and generally looked overmatched by Ortiz and three Cleveland relievers.
Their best chance arrived in the third inning, when they put together a two-out rally.
After Trent Grisham walked, Ben Rice (the uncommon Yankee who stung the ball on a few occasions) singled to right, bringing up the potential tying run in Aaron Judge.
But the Yankees captain, who finished 2-for-4 and owns a .389 batting average, swung through Ortiz’s heat twice before freezing on a slider for the strikeout.
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“Seemed like he was able to just kind of manipulate the way [his slider] was moving a little bit on guys and was changing speeds pretty well,” Rice said of Ortiz, against whom the Yankees struck out seven times and recorded three hits, all singles. “And I think that made his fastball even more effective.”
After that Rice single, Ortiz allowed just one knock the rest of the way, a harmless two-out single from Judge in the sixth.
Lefty Tim Herrin entered and induced a hard-hit ground ball from Cody Bellinger, who watched second baseman Daniel Schneemann make a great diving stop to his left before Bellinger lost a foot race with Kyle Manzardo to first base.
Of the seven batted balls struck with the most authority, six belonged to Cleveland batters.
Among those Guardians scorchers was an eighth-inning solo homer from Manzardo, who rudely greeted Fernando Cruz in his first appearance off the injured list.
The Yankees tried to respond in the ninth against Emmanuel Clase, Rice reaching on an infield single and Bellinger lofting a ground-rule double down the left field line — the first and only extra-base hit of the night for the Yankees.
But Paul Goldschmidt and Jazz Chisholm Jr. struck out to end it.
“I thought we got pitched pretty tough,” Boone said after the Yankees were shut out for the first time since April 8 in Detroit.
During a strong first two-plus months of the season, rarely have the Yankees played a game with so little life.
They were placed in a ditch in just a few minutes, trailing after seven Schmidt pitches — the seventh a two-run home run Angel Martínez blasted to right on the first pitch of the at-bat, Schmidt saying he got “ambushed” — and never recovered.
José Ramírez, who seems to love playing in The Bronx, followed with a double and came around to score on a Schneemann double.
The best offense in the American League, which entered averaging 5.46 runs per game, had no response.
“He kind of kept us at bay,” Boone said of Ortiz. “We really didn’t sting the ball off him at all.”