rally big Win
Surging yanks come back from 4-run hole to beat royals in 13 innings
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Yankees didn’t just manage to win a dramatic game over the Royals on Wednesday.
With their 5-4, 13-inning victory, they slipped by the Royals in the wild card standings and moved to within 2½ games of the second wild card as they head to Baltimore for another showdown against the Orioles on Friday.
With Baltimore’s loss on Wednesday, the Orioles are tied with the Tigers for the final wildcard spot.
So it could be an interesting September in the Bronx, after all.
“We’ve got nothing to lose,” Chase Headley said. “It seems like we’ve been playing do or die here the last month. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Especially the last two nights at Kauffman Stadium, as the Yankees won a pair of extra-inning games.
On Wednesday, the Yankees overcame a 4-0 deficit to tie the game in the seventh and then squandered a bases-loaded, one out opportunity in the 12th before Brian McCann came through with a sacrifice fly to score Didi Gregorius in the 13th.
Dellin Betances pitched the bottom of the inning for the save. He recovered from a leadoff walk to Cheslor Cuthbert to get Eric Hosmer to hit into a double play and then got Kendrys Morales to fly out.
Betances started the double play fielding the ball in between his legs and making an awkward throw to second, but Gregorius made a strong throw to first to just get Hosmer and thwart any potential rally.
“It’s not the prettiest, but it worked and we’ve got a strong arm at short,” Girardi said.
“It wasn’t the best throw,” Betances said. “You can’t teach that.”
Betances could afford to laugh after the bullpen threw seven shutout innings in relief of Luis Cessa as the Yankees won another series, this time against a Royals team that had won 16 of 19.
“The last couple of games were big for us,” Betances said. “We’re playing exciting ball. The young guys have been doing it, and we’re feeding off them.”
Gregorius started the winning rally with a single that first baseman Hosmer couldn’t handle and moved to third on a double by Starlin Castro before McCann’s sac fly.
It would have been a tough defeat for the Yankees who failed to
score in the 12th. But they received a tremendous performance from some unlikely sources in the bullpen.
After Cessa gave up four runs — three earned — in six innings, Chasen Shreve threw two scoreless innings for his second straight impressive performance since being recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday.
Tommy Layne and Adam Warren combined for a shutout inning before Blake Parker threw two more scoreless frames to keep the game knotted. Ben Heller bounced back to pitch a clean 12th after the Yankees loaded the bases in the top of the inning to pick up his first win.
In the 12th, Headley was held by third base coach Joe Espada on Brett Gardner’s single to right — a decision that looked even worse when Paolo Orlando airmailed his throw home and the Yankees ended up not scoring.
But the Yankees came away with another series victory anyway.
“This shows you the toughness in there,” Girardi said. “There were interesting times when we went through the [trade] deadline, and I still believe we can win — and these guys are showing it.”
Now it’s on to Camden Yards.
“This is really big,” Girardi said. “It’s playoff baseball now for us and it’s not going to get any easier. Every series gets a little bit bigger. … I really believe in these guys, that they’re going to continue to fight and fight.”