Yankees get walk-off win in 10th, but Luis Severino exits early with injury
Yankees starting pitcher Luis Severino, left, talks to manager Aaron Boone during the second inning against the Reds on Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
On the face of it, the Yankees’ 7-6 win over the Reds in 10 innings Wednesday was everything they could want.
It was another come-from-behind victory, their 27th. It included contributions up and down the lineup, and, by earning their 62nd win, they matched their best-ever first-half start with four games still to go. It was their MLB-leading 11th walk-off win, and even though the winning run came home on a wild pitch, they still got to celebrate with a mob at the plate.
For extra flavor, DJ LeMahieu scored that run on the day he turned 34. They also avoided losing four in a row for the first time this season.
But even all that couldn’t quite quell the dark pall cast over Yankee Stadium just before the third inning when Luis Severino came out to warm up, started throwing and then motioned for the trainer.
The diagnosis, for now, is right shoulder tightness, but Severino will undergo an MRI Thursday. What’s certain is that pitchers and shoulder injuries are a combustible combination and losing Severino, who was healthy this year after pitching only 18 innings in the previous three seasons combined, would be a significant blow to this rotation.
Severino, though, remained hopeful that he could make his next start after the All-Star break, though some of the details were no doubt concerning.
“I woke up not feeling that great, with a little tight shoulder,” Severino said. “I thought going to warm up and doing all my stuff, it was going to get looser but in the bullpen it stayed the same and in the game, it started getting tighter.”
With his fastball averaging at around 94.1-mph — 2-mph slower than average — he attempted to dial it back up to end the second, and immediately felt the tightness worsen, he said. “I told myself, before something bigger happens, stop right there.”
Severino missed almost all of 2019 thanks to first rotator cuff inflammation and then a lat strain, and spent 2020 and 2021 essentially recovering from Tommy John surgery.
But still, this was a Yankees victory, so good stuff happened, too: They scored five runs in the third to erase a four-run deficit, and even though JP Sears coughed up that lead by allowing two runs in the fifth, the Yankees were able to tie it in the eighth, when Giancarlo Stanton uncorked on Ian Gibaut’s letter-high fastball — leading off the bottom of the inning with a homer into the first row of the short porch in right.
Clay Holmes came into pitch the ninth and displayed some of the wildness that cost the Yankees the game Tuesday, but was able to adjust mid-inning, something he said was encouraging.
Then, in the 10th, Alexis Diaz intentionally walked Anthony Rizzo with one out and, facing Stanton, threw one wild pitch to advance the runners and then another to score the ghost runner, LeMahieu, with the winning run.
“Just find a way,” said Isiah Kiner-Falefa, whose bases-clearing double capped a five-run third. “All you’ve got to do is win by one and we were able to find a way, keep the game close enough to have a chance to fight back and it’s all you can ask for.”
Still, the bitter taste of Severino being unsteady lingered.
With velocity down on all four of his pitches, he allowed one run in the first and three straight homers to leadoff the second – from Kyle Farmer, Mike Moustakas and Stuart Fairchild, who notched his first hit of the year and first career homer – to make it 4-0. The three homers came on three different pitches: a hanging slider, a knee-high changeup, and a 92-mph fastball up in the zone.
The Reds, though, were kind enough to make up the difference, with interest.
Of the five runs the Yankees scored in the third, only one was earned. With two runners on and one out in the third, Jonathan India booted a potential double play ball by Anthony Rizzo to score a run. Gleyber Torres added an RBI single and Kiner-Falefa’s double made it 5-4.
The Reds re-took the lead in the fifth on Joey Votto’s RBI double and Tyler Stephenson’s sacrifice fly, before Stanton’s 23rd homer tied it.
“Not perfect — the season’s not going to be that way,” Boone said. “I’m just glad that we were able to just continue to grind and grind.”
Whether that will be with or without a healthy Severino is yet to be seen.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
