Urshela rallies Yanks
Blasts go-ahead HR in 8th after hit in eye by piece of his broken bat
Six innings after a shard of his broken bat hit Gio Urshela in the right eye, he saw a fastball clearly enough to hit a go-ahead home run.
Urshela’s eighth-inning drive off Jesus Luzardo landed in the netting above Monument Park beyond center field and helped the New York Yankees rally from a three-run deficit in a 7-5 victory Saturday that stopped the Oakland Athletics’ sevengame winning streak.
Urshela’s bat splinted as he grounded into a double play in the second inning.
“I saw just the piece of wood coming to my eyes,” he said. “I don’t even see the ball and I don’t even see where I was running. Just my eyes started feeling like a little pain, but thank God, I’m good.”
Urshela’s presence turned the game. He singled in New York’s first run in the fourth and put the Yankees ahead 5-4 when he turned on a 98.6 mph fastball from Luzardo (2-4). DJ Lemahieu added a two-run single against Sergio Romo.
Of Urshela’s 36 homers since he joined the Yankees in April 2019, 16 have tied a game or provided a lead.
Aroldis Chapman struck out Matt Chapman on a 103.4 mph pitch to strand two runners in the ninth. His final pitch was Chapman’s fastest on a strikeout since the 2017 AL wild card game and the fastest on a strikeout of any big league pitcher since Jordan Hicks of St. Louis reached 104.1 mph on April 21, 2019, according to MLB Statcast.
Oakland had built a 4-1 lead off Domingo German on solo homers by Tony Kemp and Matt Chapman, and Matt Olson’s two-run single in the fifth.
Chris Bassitt had New York largely in check. The first sign he lost composure was in the fifth, when he allowed Clint Frazier’s leadoff double and slammed his glove into the bench several times at the end of the inning.
Gary Sanchez homered in the sixth, his 11th this season and fifth in nine games, and New York tied it 4-4 in the seventh against Burch Smith when Frazier doubled again, and Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hit RBI singles.
Nestor Cortes Jr. escaped a first-and-third, no-outs jam in the fifth and pitched three innings of one-hit relief.
Chad Green (2-4) struck out the side in the eighth, and Aroldis Chapman gave up an RBI single to Ramon Laureano before getting his 15th save.
Boone was ejected for arguing a pitch on a one-out walk to Mark Canha in the ninth.
New York stopped a six-game home losing streak and got its seventh win when trailing in the seventh inning or later, tied for the major league lead.
German yielded four runs and seven hits in four-plus innings.