Yanks force Game 5
Luis Severino (above) rebounded from last week’s playoff debacle, Aaron Judge delivered a big hit, and the New York Yankees took advantage of shoddy defense by Cleveland to beat the Indians 7-3 to even their AL division series at two games apiece. Game 5 is Wednesday in Cleveland.
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 debut debacle, Judge delivered a big hit, and the Yankees took advantage of shoddy defense by Cleveland to beat the Indians 7-3 Monday night and even their AL division series at two games apiece.
“We’ve got a shot now,” New York Manager Joe Girardi said. “So it’s a totally different feeling than it was the other day.”
Gary Sanchez homered and a slumping Judge laced a two-run 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. The errors led to six unearned runs.
The defending AL champions made 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 victory Sunday night, the wild-card Yankees will start CC Sabathia against his original team in Game 5 on Wednesday. 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 faces Houston in the AL Championship Series after the Astros finished off Boston in four games Monday to win their AL division series.
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 Boston, just before starting their AL-record 22-game 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 one out in the wild-card game against Minnesota last Tuesday, but he 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.
“I think he was able to relax a lot more. He was able to control his adrenaline,” Girardi said. “He was able to channel things down and make his pitch, as opposed to just trying to power his way through it.”
Handed an early 5-0 lead and showing lots of emotion on the mound, the fired-up right-hander struck out nine in seven innings. With the crowd of 47,316 chanting his name, Severino threw 113 pitches and gave up four hits — including Carlos Santana’s two-run home run and Roberto Perez’s solo shot.
“I told him after the game, he grew up a lot today,” Girardi said.
Tommy Kahnle relieved a wild Dellin Betances in the eighth and got six consecutive outs — five on strikeouts — for his first save of the season as New York improved to 3-0 when facing playoff elimination this year.
Sanchez hit his second home run of the series off Bryan Shaw in the sixth to make it 7-3.
A rainy day in the Big Apple prevented both teams from taking batting practice on the field. But the tarp was pulled and play started on time. Showers dissipated in the bottom of the first, though a few puddles remained on the slick warning track all night.
The first of two costly errors by third baseman Giovanny Urshela, a .224 hitter in the lineup for his defense, was a painful one. Starlin Castro’s sinking line drive in the second struck him just above the left ankle and caromed away.
With two outs, Todd Frazier pulled a 78 mph curve to deep left and it landed smack on the foul line for an RBI double. A frustrated Bauer gestured with his hand when he didn’t get a strike-three call on a checked swing by Aaron Hicks, who soon singled home a run.
Brett Gardner singled and, Judge had a gritty at-bat. The rookie slugger was 0 for 11 with nine strikeouts in the series before fighting back from 0-2 to a full count and lining a two-run double to the leftfield wall on one hop.
Bauer managed 5 outs after tossing 2-hit ball with 8 strikeouts over 61/3 innings during a 4-0 victory in the series opener Thursday. All four runs he allowed were unearned.