Yankees score twice in ninth inning to walk off Tigers

The Yankees hardly broke out, but something was better than nothing. And nothing was what they had entering the ninth inning Friday night.

Close to being shut out for a sixth time this season and coming off a series in Baltimore in which they handled their bats like soggy newspapers, the Yankees rallied to beat the Tigers, 2-1, on Friday night on Anthony Rizzo’s walk-off single in front of 37,386 at the Stadium.

“Crazy game. Fun game,” said Marcus Stroman, who was in line to take the loss before the ninth-inning rally.

The Yankees (21-13), who had 30 runs and 37 hits last Saturday and Sunday in hammering the Brewers, proceeded to score six total runs while hitting .177 with a .557 OPS in four games against the Orioles. Then they managed only two hits in 24 at-bats in the first eight innings against the Tigers, dropping that batting average to .162 (24-for-148), before producing four straight hits with none out in the ninth.

“We’ve got time,” Giancarlo Stanton said of the dugout feeling going into the ninth. “If we’ve got outs left, we’ve got time.”

Aaron Judge, 1-for-13 in Baltimore, led off with a sharp single against Manhasset’s Jason Foley and Alex Verdugo bunted down the third-base line for a single, a “very high IQ play,” Stroman said.

Stanton lasered an RBI double into the rightfield corner to tie the score and, with the infield in, Rizzo scorched a grounder past second baseman Andy Ibanez’s diving backhand attempt for the much-needed game-winner.

“I think Judgie getting on set the tone there,” Rizzo said. “He’s always so big for us. And then Verdugo with the . . . I don’t know if that was a sneak attack bunt, but a perfect bunt, and then Big G with a massive swing there.”

Stroman said that from a pitcher’s standpoint, the kind of bunt Verdugo put down can be “deflating.”

“I’m sure that was the last thing he [Foley] was probably thinking there,” Stroman said of a bunt in that situation.

The Tigers, who have quietly assembled what appears to be a good, young pitching staff, got five scoreless innings from Reese Olson. Three relievers got it to Foley, 9-for-9 in save chances entering the day.

Stroman, who walked a season-high five in his previous outing in Milwaukee, matched that total Friday night in 5 1⁄3 innings in which he allowed a run and three hits. His bases-loaded walk to Colt Keith on a 3-and-2 pitch with one out in the sixth put the Yankees in a 1-0 hole.

“I definitely have to be better,” Stroman said of the command issues. “I know what I have to work on. I’m not worried about it.”

Riley Greene led off the sixth with a single, and after Mark Canha struck out, Stroman walked Wenceel Perez and Kerry Carpenter. After Keith walked, Ian Hamilton struck out Spencer Torkelson and got Zach McKinstry to ground to second to limit the damage.

The Yankees put two on in the seventh when Verdugo led off with a walk against Alex Faedo and Rizzo walked with one out against lefty Andrew Chafin. But Chafin got Gleyber Torres to ground into a 4-4-3 double play, giving the Yankees an MLB-leading 40.

It was only the second time in 12 games that the Yankees have won while scoring two or fewer runs. They are 19-3 when they score at least three runs and are 9-3 in one-run games.

Could this game spark the offense? “I hope so,” Aaron Boone said. “We’ve got a lot of good hitters. It’s been a slow week for us, but you hope something like this can kind of ignite that fire a little bit and get the offense cranking . . . Different ways, you’ve got to be able to find ways to win in this league, and they were able to find a way tonight by putting together a really, really strong inning against a good reliever.”

Notes & quotes: There still is no official timeline for Gerrit Cole’s return, but he’s set to take the next significant step in his rehab. He’s scheduled to throw from a mound on Saturday.