Yankees’ offense struggles again as Sean Casey debut ends with loss to lowly Rockies

DENVER — The Sean Casey era got off to a rousing start Friday … but it only lasted two batters.

The rest of Friday night, the Yankees’ offense looked a lot like the one they had in the first half.

After Giancarlo Stanton’s two-run home run in the first inning, the Yankees went down quietly in a 7-2 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field, opening the second half with a fizzle.

The Yankees (49-43) led 2-0 after two batters, but scattered six hits the rest of the way and drew just one walk all night in Casey’s first game as hitting coach.

Instead it was the Rockies (35-57), owners of the third-worst record in the majors, who delivered the boom, crushing three home runs — one off Carlos Rodon in his second Yankees start and two more off the bullpen.

The loss, coupled with the Red Sox’s win over the Cubs, moved the Yankees into a last-place tie in the AL East.

Besides Gleyber Torres, who singled to lead off the game and finished 3-for-4, and Stanton, who went 2-for-4, the Yankees struggled to get anything going against left-hander Austin Gomber, who went six innings, and the Rockies’ bullpen.

Rodon was not quite as sharp as he was in his debut.

The $162 million left-hander, who threw 5 ¹/₃ innings of two-run ball on 69 pitches on July 7 against the Cubs, built his pitch count up to 88 on Friday, but that only got him through the fifth inning.

The Rockies got to Rodon for four runs on four hits and two walks across those five innings.

The most encouraging aspect of Rodon’s outing were his six strikeouts, five of which came on his slider.

He said after his season debut that he wished he had his secondary stuff working better, and he appeared to have it going on Friday.

After a quick first inning, Rodon got into trouble in the second.

With one out, he walked C.J. Cron on five pitches before Randal Grichuk and Ezequiel Tovar delivered back-to-back singles — Tovar’s nearly taking Rodon’s head off on a line drive back up the middle — to cut the Yankees’ lead to 2-1.

Then, after one of Rodon’s three wild pitches on the night advanced the runners to second and third, No. 9 hitter Brenton Doyle lifted a two-run double over Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s head in left field to put the Rockies up 3-2.

Grichuk led off the fourth inning with a solo home run, turning on Rodon’s high fastball and crushing it 431 feet to left-center field for the 4-2 lead.

The Yankees had a prime chance to trim the deficit in the sixth inning after Stanton led off by blooping a double down the right-field line.

He moved to third on Anthony Rizzo’s groundout, but was stranded there when Harrison Bader and Josh Donaldson both flew out to left field.

Michael King replaced Rodon in the sixth inning and he came back out for the seventh, too, as manager Aaron Boone tried to keep the Yankees within striking distance in the hope of getting to the Rockies’ leaky bullpen.

Instead, the Rockies extended their lead against King. He left a hanging breaking ball over the heart of the plate, which Kris Bryant clubbed to the left-field seats for a two-run home run that made it 6-2 in the seventh.

Nolan Jones later clobbered a solo shot off Albert Abreu in the eighth inning to account for the Rockies’ seventh run.