Yankees snap five-game skid as David Bednar gets five-out save, Paul Goldschmidt hits pinch-hit go-ahead homer
The Yankees' David Bednar, left, and Ben Rice, right, celebrate after their team's win in a game against the Texas Rangers on Wednesday in Arlington, Texas. Credit: AP/Tony Gutierrez
ARLINGTON, Texas — Paul Goldschmidt and David Bednar allowed the Yankees to call their six-game trip south merely bad instead of catastrophic.
Goldschmidt, who has crushed lefty pitching all season, did so again Wednesday afternoon, hitting a pinch-hit homer in the seventh inning off Robert Garcia to help lift the Yankees to a 3-2 victory over the Rangers that ended a five-game losing streak.
Bednar delivered a gritty five-out save to pick up his first save as a Yankee.
“A great, great job by him,” Goldschmidt said of Bednar, whom the first baseman faced in the National League Central when the former was with the Cardinals and the latter was with the Pirates. “Obviously, we needed the win.”
It was the first victory for the Yankees (61-54), who came into the day just one-half game ahead of the Rangers (60-56) for the American League’s third and final wild-card spot and one game behind the Mariners for the second slot, since the trade deadline.
“It’s one game,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We gotta dig ourselves out here, but as I’ve said, it’s there for us. I’m steadfast and I believe we have a great run in us. I believe in those guys in the room, but as we’ve been saying, we’ve got to go do it. This is just one win.”
Bednar, one of the headline acquisitions before last Thursday’s trade deadline and making his third appearance since joining the club, struck out the last two batters of the eighth and the first two of the ninth before walking Corey Seager and allowing a single to Marcus Semien. With Camilo Doval warming, Boone briefly visited Bednar, who was at 35 pitches, but left him in to face Adolis Garcia.
Boone said afterward his intention was to bring in Doval, who had worked the previous two days, but Bednar gave “me a look like, ‘No, you’re not.’ ”
“I said, ‘Are you sure?’ ” Boone said. “And he was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go. I got this guy.’ And we rolled with it. What a great performance. You’re always uncomfortable any time one of your leverage guys like that is getting up to where he was from a pitch-count standpoint. I just felt like he absolutely wanted the ball.”
Bednar struck Garcia out on his 42nd pitch of the outing for his fifth strikeout to end it.
“I honestly didn’t even see him coming,” Bednar said of Boone. “I was just kind of getting my mind right to face Garcia. I told him I wanted him. He agreed. I just wanted to bear down and get that last one.”
Goldschmidt put Bednar in position to earn the save.
With the score tied and one out in the seventh, Goldschmidt pounded an 0-and-2 pitch 395 feet to left to make it 3-2. It was Goldschmidt’s 10th homer of the season, seven of those coming off lefthanded pitching. He’s hitting .410 (43-for-105) with a 1.217 OPS against lefties this season.
“I just kind of treat it like my first at-bat of the game,” Goldschmidt said of pinch hitting. “I don’t try to overthink it or do anything different. Just try to be ready, just like I would in my first at-bat.”
This being the Yankees, who entered Wednesday having lost 29 of their last 47 games, it was not an easy final three innings, not for a bullpen that seemingly gets called on by the sixth inning each day.
On this afternoon, Carlos Rodon made it to the sixth, but was pulled after walking leadoff hitter Wyatt Langford. That started a parade of relievers preceding Bednar — Mark Leiter Jr., Tim Hill and Yerry De los Santos. Leiter (5-6) needed only eight pitches to get three outs in the sixth.
“Hats off to the bullpen,” said Rodon, who allowed two runs, six hits and four walks over five innings in which he struck out three.
De los Santos got Garcia to fly out with the bases loaded to end the seventh and retired the first batter of the eighth, giving way to Bednar. He walked the first batter he faced before striking out former Yankee Kyle Higashioka and Josh Smith, part of the package of prospects the Yankees sent to the Rangers at the 2021 trade deadline in the ill-fated Joey Gallo deal.
“It was a great team win all around,” Bednar said. “Good to get the ball rolling in the right direction.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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