Yankees beat Tigers on Josh Donaldson walk-off sac fly
Pitching and power has mostly carried the Yankees to the top of the standings. If they’re not putting up zeroes, they’re crushing the ball over the wall with a major league-leading 80 home runs.
Sunday, though, showed they can do the little things well, too. Their aggressive baserunning was the difference between a frustrating loss and an exhilarating 10-inning, 5-4 victory in The Bronx.
Twice their legs contributed to runs, on a day when their pitching was mediocre and their lineup mostly quiet. The result was a second perfect, 6-0 homestand of the season that helped the Yankees improve to an otherworldly 39-15 for just the seventh time in franchise history.
“Just some winning things happened,” manager Aaron Boone said after the Yankees won for the 20th time in their last 24 home games. “Credit to those guys, everyone in that room who is really invested in that part of the game. We’ve seen it lead to runs, lead to victories.”
It did on Sunday.
This wasn’t nearly as easy as the first two games of the series, in which the Yankees outscored the woeful Tigers 16-0. Twice the Yankees trailed. But they rallied each time, overcoming the bullpen blowing the lead in the eighth inning and winning on Josh Donaldson’s long sacrifice fly in the 10th that followed Anthony Rizzo’s infield single to start the frame, pushing Aaron Judge, who started the extra frame at second as the automatic runner, to third base.
With the Yankees down a run in the eighth, Rizzo created a run after getting hit by a pitch. The slow-footed slugger stole his fourth base of the year and went to third when second baseman Jonathan Schoop’s error. Rizzo scored on Gleyber Torres’ slow roller that was thrown away by third baseman Harold Castro, who was trying to get Rizzo at home.
“I was timing [Tigers reliever Michael] Fulmer up a little bit. I kind of think he was just forgetting about me over there,” Rizzo said. “With one out, I was going to take a shot with one pitch and it worked out.”
DJ LeMahieu’s bases-loaded walk in the seventh had given the Yankees a short-lived lead. The key play in that frame, however, came following a Torres single. He was put in motion with Isiah Kiner-Falefa at the plate, and when Kiner-Falefa bounced a grounder to Javy Baez, the former Met went for the force at second, not realizing that Torres was already on the base, and he didn’t get any outs. After pinch-hitter Matt Carpenter walked and Joey Gallo struck out looking, reliever Alex Lange missed on four straight to LeMahieu to force in a run.
“We were able to scrap a run in a couple of different ways, which is nice to see,” Donaldson said.
Jordan Montgomery turned in a strong outing, though it wasn’t as dominant as the other Yankees starters have been of late. The Yankees’ pitchers scoreless-innings streak came to an end at 22 innings in the fourth, a run that began in the ninth inning of the second game of Thursday’s doubleheader sweep of the Angels.
With one out, Miguel Cabrera walked and came all the way around from first on Baez’s double off Montgomery, who allowed two earned runs on five hits and struck out five over 6 ¹/₃ innings. Daz Cameron — the son of former Mets outfielder Mike Cameron — then scored Baez with two outs. For the first time in the series, the Tigers were on the board and the Yankees were behind.
It didn’t last long for the Yanks to come back. Gallo pulled the Yankees even in the home fifth, turning on a 3-1 Rony Garcia fastball for his sixth long ball of the season and first since May 15.
The lead went back and forth from there. The Yankees found a way to prevail, and this time it wasn’t because of their pitching or their power. This was about will, not necessarily skill.
“Just a lot of guys with a hand in the victory again,” Boone said.
