Yankees, Brendan Beck bombarded by Twins in Independence Day defeat

Gary Phillips, New York Daily NewsSat, Jul 4, 2026·3 min read

As the Yankees prepared to play on the United States’ 250th birthday, Ben Rice cracked a joke.

“We’ve got the guy from Great Britain pitching on the Fourth of July,” the first baseman said, referring to Brendan Beck.

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Beck, promoted from Triple-A to start in place of the injured Carlos Rodón on Saturday, is not actually from Great Britain. However, the La Jolla, California native’s mom is British, which let him represent Great Britain in the World Baseball Classic earlier this year.

Maybe that ancestry made Beck the wrong guy to pitch on America’s big day. While the 27-year-old was no turncoat in the Yankees’ quest for their second straight win, he did surrender three home runs to the Twins. The fireworks set the tone in an 11-4 loss for the pinstripers. who have now dropped eight of their last nine after snapping a seven-game losing streak on Friday night.

“Obviously, not good results putting us in a hole early, making the defense stand out there for a long time in the first, and taking the crowd out of it,” Beck, who happened to be wearing a shirt that read “USA,” said after his first major league start. “Not the way we want to start the game on an exciting day at the yard. So putting us in that early hole sucks. I felt like I was able to find a rhythm there at the end, but ultimately, I gotta get that rhythm going at first pitch.”

Beck, who enjoyed a solid debut earlier this season, had been pitching well at Triple-A, posting a 3.07 ERA over 88 innings. But with the righty and the Yankees donning stars and stripes themed jerseys, bombs began bursting in the humid Bronx air shortly after Saturday’s game began.

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Minnesota, having already scored on a Byron Buxton double, continued its first-inning offensive when Kody Clemens, son of Roger, launched a two-run homer. Luke Keaschall and Alex Jackson then hit back-to-back homers in the second inning.

Beck, off with his command and lacking the necessary stuff to consistently get big league hitters out, only lasted 3.2 innings. He totaled five hits, five earned runs, two walks, three strikeouts and six hard-hit balls over 87 pitches before being optioned back to Triple-A.

“He relies on elite command and getting it to where he wants,” Aaron Boone said, “and it looked like he had some mistakes with some secondary [pitches] in the strike zone.”

Beck wasn’t the only Yankee to serve up a dinger on Saturday, as Trevor Larnach took Tim Hill deep for a solo shot in the fourth inning. Josh Bell also crushed a bases-empty blast off Ryan Yarbrough in the seventh before tacking on a two-run homer against Camilo Doval in the eighth.

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Meanwhile, the Bombers’ bats tried to climb out of their hole with a few dingers of their own. Jasson Domínguez put them on the board with a solo homer in the fourth frame, while Max Schuemann added a two-run jack in the fifth.

The slumping Cody Bellinger also had a run-scoring double in the fifth, marking his first RBI since June 17.

But the Yankees were unable to capitalize at other points in the game, and they continued what’s been a sloppy stretch with two errors. With a 1-for-10 performance with runners in scoring position, nine men left on base and the Twins piling on late, their comeback effort fell way short in their not-so-perilous fight against Minnesota.

“It’s never easy,” Schuemann said of playing from behind, something the Yankees have had to do a lot lately, “but I feel like with the lineup that we have, we’re more than capable.”