Severino, Judge help Yanks reach Game 5
NEW YORK — Luis Severino, Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees are headed back to Cleveland for a decisive Game 5 — thanks to plenty of help from the Indians.
Severino rebounded from his playoff debacle, Judge delivered a big hit and the Yankees took advantage of shoddy defense by Cleveland to beat the Indians, 7-3, last night and even their AL Division Series at two games apiece.
“We’ve got a shot now,” said New York manager Joe Girardi, harshly criticized for his Game 2 decisions. “So it’s a totally different feeling than it was the other day, and these guys have picked me up.”
Gary Sanchez homered and a slumping Judge laced an early two-run double for his only hit of the series to go with 12 strikeouts in 15 atbats.
Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer struggled on three days’ rest and was chased in the second inning. But it was on the wet Yankee Stadium field where the Indians really flopped, committing a season-high four errors that marked a franchise record for a postseason game and led to six unearned runs.
The defending AL champions made only 76 errors all season, the lowest total in the league.
“The whole night, we made it hard on ourselves to win,” manager Terry Francona said.
After preventing a threegame sweep with a 1-0 win Sunday night, the wild-card Yankees will start CC Sabathia against his original team in Game 5 tomorrow. Indians ace Corey Kluber gets the ball in a rematch from Game 2, when he was hit hard by New York.
The winner faces Houston THERE IT GOES: Yankees catcher Gary Sanchez hits a homer in Game 4 of their division series last night against the Indians. in the AL Championship Series after the Astros finished off the Red Sox in four games yesterday to win their ALDS.
“We’ve got a young team and they’re hungry,” Severino said.
Simply taking two in a row to send the series back to Cleveland was no small feat for the Yankees. The last time the Indians lost consecutive games was Aug. 22-23 at home against the Red Sox, just before starting their AL-record 22game winning streak. From that point on, Cleveland had gone 35-4 before arriving in the Bronx for Game 3 of the ALDS.
Minus injured slugger Edwin Encarnacion, the Indians have scored three runs in two games since.
Severino got only one out in the wild-card game against Minnesota last Tues- day, but was bailed out by his teammates as New York ad- vanced with an 8-4 victory. This time, the 23-year-old ace was determined to come through, and he did.