Strange things, or at least things strange to me, happened in last night's Yankee game. They were playing a National League team, in this case the Pittsburgh Pirates, and it wasn't the World Series. They didn't get the pitching they needed, and they won, anyway. Also, a man hit his 60th home run of the season, and, as far as we can tell, didn't cheat to get it. And that wasn't even the biggest home run of the game.
Nestor Cortes started, and, again, was limited to 5 innings, allowing just 1 run on 5 hits and 2 walks. Ron Marinaccio and Lou Trivino pitched the 6th, Jonathan Loáisiga the 7th, and Clay Holmes the 8th. Each of them allowed at least 1 run. Aroldis Chapman was put in for the 9th, in what looked at the time like a non-pressure situation, and he got all 3 batters out. It was 8-4 Pirates going to the bottom of the 9th.
Harrison Bader, the injured center fielder that the Yankees got from the St. Louis Cardinals in the Jordan Montgomery trade, finally made his Yankee debut. He went 2-for-4 with 3 RBIs, driving in a run with a single in the 5th inning and 2 with a single in the 6th. Had the game ended 8-4, his performance would have been the silver lining in a very cloudy game.
Aaron Judge led off the bottom of the 9th, against Pirate pitcher Wil Crowe -- whose great-grandfather was a brother of Yankee Hall-of-Famer Red Ruffing. Now, Crowe has a new claim to fame: Judge hit Number 60 off him, a no-doubt-about-er over the left-center-field bleachers. Judge joined Babe Ruth and Roger Maris to be the only players ever to hit 60 home runs in a major league season without cheating.
It was 8-5. The Yankees needed more baserunners. They got them, as the crowd of 40,157 seemed to feed off of Judge's homer, and the players seemed to feed off the crowd's energy. The jhomer was followed by a double by Anthony Rizzo. Gleyber Torres drew a walk. The tying run was at the plate. Josh Donaldson singled to load the bases with nobody out. Would the Yankees pull this out, or would the Buccos shut them down and make this another tease, another "Yankee RISPfail"?
The batter was Giancarlo Stanton. He hit a screaming liner that just barely cleared the left field fence. Home run. Grand slam. Ballgame over. Yankees win. Theeeeeeee Yankees win!
Yankees 9, Pirates 8. WP: Chapman (3-3). No save. LP: Crowe (5-10).
The Toronto Blue Jays also won, so the Yankees' Magic Number was reduced to 10. Of course, 60 home runs is also a magic number. But the main story was the win, thus Stanton's homer. YES announcer Michael Kay made the point that Stanton, presumably clean, had hit 59 homers with the Miami Marlins in 2017, and yet nobody remembers it. This walkoff grand slam was his 27th homer of this season, still a pretty good total, even before you factor in the fact that, yet again, he missed a big chunk of the season due to injury.
The short series with the Pirates concludes tonight. Luis Severino has been activated from the Injured List, and is scheduled to start against Roansy Contreras. Is this the night for Judge to hit Number 61, to tie the American League (and real major league) record held by Roger Maris? Or even to also hit Number 62 to break it? Stay tuned.