Yankees rally in eighth inning to beat Rangers
The Yankees' Harrison Bader is greeted in the dugout after he scored against the Rangers during the eighth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
Who needs Aaron Judge? The Yankees do, obviously. But they keep saying they have the pieces in place to win even without their injured captain.
On Sunday, for one day at least, the Yankees proved it.
Harrison Bader’s go-ahead two-run double in the eighth inning led the Yankees to a 5-3 victory over the Texas Rangers before a sellout crowd of 46,064 at Yankee Stadium.
With the Yankees trailing 3-2, Anthony Volpe led off the eighth with a double. After falling to bunt him over, Jose Trevino followed with an infield single to deep short, with Volpe holding at second.
Gleyber Torres popped to shallow right before Bader split the outfielders in left-center against righthander Yerry Rodriguez to give the Yankees their first lead of the day. Texas had gone up 3-0 in the first two innings against Gerrit Cole.
“Timely hitting is really important to win and put away games,” Bader said. “Not to mention that, but our bullpen [4 1⁄3 scoreless innings] was great, too. All around, it was a really great win.”
Giancarlo Stanton, who entered the eighth with four hits in his previous 50 at-bats, drilled a single to left to drive in Bader for a 5-3 lead as the Yankees took the rubber match against the AL West-leading Rangers and finished 4-2 on their homestand against Seattle and Texas. The Yankees improved to 8-10 since Judge went out of the lineup with a toe ligament tear.
Said manager Aaron Boone: “To have that kind of a rally and a number of guys go up and have really good, impactful at-bats, hit the ball hard, too, within it . . . it was great.
“Kind of hung around all day. They get to Gerrit in the first couple and really drive his pitch count up, but he holds the line there and then the bullpen gives us a chance, and some really good at-bats. We’re able to finish off a really nice win, nice homestand.”
Cole, who threw 72 of his 107 pitches in the first three innings, allowed three runs in 4 2⁄3 innings in his shortest outing of the year. He gave up nine hits, walked one, struck out seven, was called for a balk and had a strikeout negated by a pitch-clock violation (although he recovered to get that batter, Robbie Grossman, to fly out to end the third).
The Rangers took a 1-0 lead two batters into the game on a double by Marcus Semien and a broken-bat RBI single by Corey Seager. Cole struck out the next three batters.
Torres led off the bottom of the first with a double against former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi but was doubled off second base when Semien, the second baseman, made an over-the-shoulder catch of a pop-up in short rightfield.
Torres, in what was not his first career baserunning mishap, seemed completely unaware that the ball had been caught long after he had been doubled off second. Lingering at third base, he eventually was informed and left the field.
Jonah Heim led off the second with a long home run to right to make it 2-0. One out later, Ezequiel Duran doubled and moved to third when Cole was called for a balk. He stepped off the rubber incorrectly after seeing Volpe dart behind Duran at second base on what was — as Cole later explained — supposed to be a pickoff play.
“The balk was a balk,” Cole said. “There’s no other way to say it.”
Leody Tavares followed with an RBI double for a 3-0 lead.
The Yankees battled back against Eovaldi, who came in with a 9-3 record and 2.80 ERA. On April 29, he shut out the Yankees on three hits with eight strikeouts. This time, he allowed two runs in 5 2⁄3 innings.
Stanton led off the second with a walk and moved to third on a double by Jake Bauers. DJ LeMahieu, who had four hits in his previous 27 at-bats, followed with a two-run double off the right-centerfield wall to make it 3-2. He reached third with one out, but Volpe struck out and Trevino grounded out.
And the bullpen: Ron Marinaccio (4-3) got the win after picking up a save in Saturday’s 1-0 victory. Michael King (Friday’s losing pitcher) closed out this one for his fifth save. He struck out Adolis Garcia, who had hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the 10th inning on King’s first pitch Friday night.
The Yankees held the Rangers to seven runs in the three-game series and now will face the Athletics (20-60) in Oakland in a three-game series.
“This offensive club that we just played is top-notch in the league,” Cole said. “It was great to see our guys come in and thrive . . . It’s been a good homestand. Two series, played a lot of good baseball overall. It’s obviously a happy flight. It’s a long one. It’s nice to spend the next five hours thrilled about closing this one off.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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