The AL East is arguably the most competitive baseball division as the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles opened a major three-game series at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night. The O’s entered the game three games behind the Tampa Bay Rays first, and the Yankees were three games behind Baltimore.
Yankees ace Gerrit Cole, who recorded his 2,000th career strikeout on Tuesday night, was not at the top of the game and went out with five runs allowed in five innings plus two batters. He walked three and struck out only two, tied for his fewest strikeouts as a Yankee. The Orioles took a 4-0 lead on Gunnar Henderson’s fourth-inning homer.
The Yankees rallied against O starter Kyle Bradish and tied the game at 4-4 in the fifth inning. Baltimore regained the lead half an inning later. The score remained 5-4 until the end of the ninth inning when reigning AL MVP Aaron Judge hit a game-tying home run against Felix Bautista, closer to the world. To action pictures:
“He’s the best player in the world. I’d take him on anybody, anytime,” Yankees rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe said in an on-court interview after the game (by MLB.com).
The home run was Judge’s 14th of the season and eighth in his last nine games. Since returning from the injured list earlier this month, Judge is 18 of 49 (.367) with those eight homers in 13 games. He walked (12) almost as much as he hit (15) too. Judge picked up where he left off last season when he hit an American League record 62 homers.
New York completed the comeback and won the game – its fifth straight win – on Volpe’s sacrificial volley late in the tenth inning (NY 6, BAL 5 in 10 innings). The Yankees trailed 4-0, 5-4 and saw off relievers Yennier Cano and Bautista for three combined innings, but still managed to tie the game and then walk away with the win.
“It’s one of the best feelings I’ve ever had,” Volpe said of the sacrificial fly — his first career RBI — during his on-court interview (by MLB.com).
Ace reliever Michael King struck out six of the seven batters he faced — including all three with the autorunner on second base in the top of the tenth — to give the Yankees offense a chance in the ninth and 10th innings. . The bullpen and offense recovered Cole, who still has a 2.53 ERA after Tuesday’s miss. He was one of the best pitchers in the game this year.
The win improves the Yankees to 30-20 and drops the Orioles to 31-17. The first-place Rays were wiped out on Tuesday to fall to 35-15. Tampa remains in first place and three games ahead of Baltimore, although the Yankees are only five games down. That’s the closest the Yankees have come to first place since April 22.