Yankees roll, force deciding Game 5
Indians commit four errors, leading to 6 unearned runs.
Luis Severino NEW YORK — bounced back from his playoff debacle, slumping Aaron Judge delivered a big hit and the New York Yankees took advantage of shoddy defense by Cleveland to beat the Indians 7-3 Monday night and push their AL Division Series to a decisive Game 5.
Gary Sanchez homered and Judge hit an early tworun double for his only hit of the series to go with 12 strikeouts in 15 at-bats.
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 wildcard Yankees will start CC Sabathia against his original team in Game 5 tonight. Indians ace Corey Kluber gets the ball in a rematch from Game 2, when he was hit hard by New York.
“It’s hard to imagine giving it to somebody better,” Francona said. “We’re looking forward to it.”
The winner will face Houston in the AL Championship Series.
Just 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 Boston, just before starting their AL-record 22-game winning streak.
From that point on, Cleveland had gone 35-4 before arriving at Yankee Stadium for Game 3 of the ALDS.
Severino got only one out in the wild-card game against Minnesota last Tuesday, but was bailed out by his teammates as New York advanced with an 8-4 victory.
This time, the 23-year-old ace was determined to come through, and he did.
Handed an early 5-0 lead, the right-hander struck out nine in seven innings and gave up four hits, including Carlos Santana’s two-run homer and Roberto Perez’s solo homer.
“I think he was able to relax a lot more. He was able to control his adrenaline,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of Severino. “He was able to channel things down and make his pitch, as opposed to just trying to power his way through it.
“I told him after the game, he grew up a lot today.”
Tommy Kahnle relieved a wild Dellin Betances in the eighth and got six outs for his first save of the sea- son as New York improved to 3-0 when facing playoff elimination this year.