With Aaron Judge on the IL with a right forearm flexor strain NL Cy Young co-frontrunner Zack Wheeler on the mound, there was an ominous feeling that the Yankees were on the fast track toward being swept at home. However, Wheeler experienced a rare day of poor command while the Yankees bullpen experienced a rare day of lockdown pitching. The offense struck for four runs early and Ryan McMahon had a big day with the bat and the glove as the Yankees held on to win, 4-3, to avert the sweep.
The Yankees
needed Carlos Rodón to be at his sharpest facing Wheeler, but despite some ephemeral success in the first striking out Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber, Rodón ran into the home run monster in the second. He yanked a 2-2 changeup down the middle to Nick Castellanos, who deposited it into the left field seats to lead off the inning. Two batters later, a 1-2 slider stayed too elevated to Otto Kemp, and the rookie third baseman lined a wall scraper over the short porch to make it 2-0 Phillies, Rodón giving up two long balls in three batters after not giving up one in his previous two starts.
Fortunately for Rodón and the Yankees, Wheeler was uncharacteristically wild after a 1-2-3, five-pitch first. He gave up a leadoff single to Giancarlo Stanton and then hit Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jasson Domínguez back-to-back to load the bases with no outs. Ryan McMahon wasted no time grabbing his first big Yankees moment, pulling a hanging 2-1 curveball just inside first base to plate Stanton and Jazz and level the score, 2-2. Anthony Volpe struck out with runners on second and third with no outs, but Austin Wells picked him up with a sac fly to give the Yankees the lead before Trent Grisham doubled that lead with an RBI single through the hole on the right side to plate McMahon from second.
The response by his offense seemed to settle Rodón into his start, striking out a pair in a 1-2-3 third. The Yankees gave themselves a golden opportunity to widen their lead in the bottom-half, Cody Bellinger leading off with a triple aided by an ill-advised sliding attempt by Castellanos in right. However, Stanton struck out and Bellinger was thrown out at home tagging up on a medium fly ball to left from Jazz for an excruciating inning-ending double play. The throw home from Johan Rojas was high, but an awful slide at the plate from Bellinger allowed J.T. Realmuto to tag him on the neck as he came down from a leaping catch to corral the throw from the outfield.
Rodón tallied another pair of strikeouts the following frame to give him seven through four. The bats gave themselves another chance to score putting a pair on in the bottom-half on a McMahon single and Wells walk, but Grisham struck out to strand runners on the corners. The Phillies punished the Yankees for wasting these opportunities, Kemp hitting his second solo shot in as many at-bats to cut New York’s lead to 4-3 in the fifth. They put another pair on with no outs, but another defensive gem from McMahon and a catch at the wall in right by Bellinger kept the lead intact.
The game settled into a bit of a lull from there, Rodón making it one out into the sixth inning. We all held our breaths as Aaron Boone called on Jonathan Loáisiga as the first man out of the bullpen, but he navigated around a Realmuto single to finish a scoreless inning. The Yankees stranded another pair in the bottom of the sixth, though did manage to knock Wheeler from the contest having scored four runs in 5.2 innings of the Phillies ace.
Rodón departing in the sixth meant that the final eleven outs were tasked to a bullpen that has been one of the worst relief units in baseball for the better part of two months, already having given up 15 runs in the first two contests of this series. However, they pitched as well as in recent memory starting with Loáisiga, followed by a 1-2-3 seventh and eighth from Luke Weaver and Tim Hill, respectively. Devin Williams was tasked with locking down the save against the middle of the Phillies order, and he struck out a pair to seal the win, 4-3.
With the win, the Yankees pull within 5.5 games of the division-leading Blue Jays, who were clobbered by the Tigers earlier today after winning eight of nine. Next, the Yankees host the Rays — coming off a sweep at the hands of the Reds — for four games at the Stadium. Cam Schlittler starts the series opener tomorrow against Drew Rasmussen. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05pm ET with the broadcast remaining on YES.
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