BLUNDERFUL
Yanks get first win thanks to generous Jays
Yankee Stadium has hosted its share of lategame rallies.
Not many have been as, well, strange as Wednesday night’s comeback in the Yankees’ 43 win over the Blue Jays.
The Yankees took advantage of a bloop double, two batters hit by pitches and a wild pitch to take the lead in the bottom of the eighth.
Fittingly, they tied it when Brian McCann was hit by a pitch and took the lead on a single by Chase Headley that barely left the infield.
Whatever. The Yankees, coming off a seasonopening loss in which they scored just one run and seemed fated to do the same on Wednesday, will take it.
“You don’t draw it up like that, but however we get it, we’ll take it,” said Chris Young, who started the threerun rally with a bloop double that eluded three Blue Jays.
Young was pinch hitting for Didi Gregorius against southpaw Aaron Loup, who allowed all three batters he faced to get on base.
A single by Jacoby Ellsbury— about the only wellstruck ball of the inning — sent Young to third and Brett Gardner was hit on the right wrist to load the bases with no one out.
Brett Cecil replaced Loup and wasn’t much better, with his wild pitch allowing Young to score to make it 32. After striking out Carlos Beltran, Cecil walked Mark Teixeira intentionally to fill the bases again and then hit McCann.
Headley followed with a grounder back to Cecil that he couldn’t handle and it bounced toward short and into short left, allowing Gardner to score the lead run.
“You’ve got Chase’s ball that goes from a possible double play to tipping off the pitcher’s glove into left field,” Young said.
It was an outcome that seemed unlikely when Michael Pineda left the game after six innings, having pitched well in a frigid Stadium without any ( visible) pine tar.
Pineda, who famously had some issues pitching in chilly temperatures a year ago when he was found using the illegal substance, gave up two runs, striking out six.
“I’m sure he’ll have a lot of eyes on him,’’ manager Joe Girardi said before the game of Pineda’s pinetar controversy from a year ago. “I think he understands. I hope.”
Playing in front of a tiny crowd — it was 44 degrees at game time and only dropped from there — Pineda was fine, but departed facing a 20 deficit against R. A. Dickey.
“I thought he was really good considering the elements he had to battle,” Girardi said.
The Yankees finally scored their second run of the season in the bottom of the sixth.
Ellsbury singled to reach for the third time of the game and stole second. He moved to third on Gardner’s grounder to first and scored on Beltran’s sacrifice fly to center.
Dellin Betances, in his first appearance after a rough spring training, struggled with command in the eighth, but it wasn’t until McCann made his second illadvised throw to first to try to pick off a runner that Betances gave up a run, as McCann fired the ball past Teixeira, allowing Jose Bautista to score from third.
But Betances earned the win thanks to the eighthinning outburst and Andrew Miller closed the game for his first save in his Yankee debut.
“We’re capable of scoring runs, but thatwas pretty unconventional,” said Gardner, adding that his wrapped right wrist was fine.
Avoiding an 02 start, though, was the only thing that mattered.
As Girardi put it: “You need nights like that.”