On Friday night in Milwaukee, the Yankees were shut down by Brewers’ phenom pitcher Jacob Misiorowski to spectacular effect. On Saturday, it was the Yankees’ turn to throw their young star, and he was quite good himself. Cam Schlittler ended up going six innings, for the Yankees, allowing no runs on just two hits. He even came back from taking a line drive off the leg to put in another excellent outing.
It’s just that the rest of the team didn’t pull their collective weight. The Yankees managed just three
runs on Saturday, despite seven hits and seven walks. However, they twice held late leads, as they were ahead in both the eighth and tenth innings. The bullpen couldn’t close things out either though, as they dropped a frustrating one to the Brewers, 4-3 in 10 innings.
Before the frustration, the game started on a pretty decent note. It took just one batter for the Yankees to surpass their run total from Friday night. On the second pitch of the game, Paul Goldschmidt took Kyle Harrison deep to give the Yankees a good start.
In the bottom of the first, there was a scary moment as Cam Schlittler took a comeback liner off the calf, causing him to limp around for a bit. After the trainer came out to look at him and some practice pitches, he remained in and struck out Jake Bauers.
The Yankees picked up a second run in the fourth inning, although it was a missed chance at even more. Amed Rosario and Jazz Chisholm Jr. opened the inning with hits, giving the Yankees runners at the corner, with a José Caballero walk then loading the bases. However, Harrison got the next two outs, leaving the inning up to Goldschmidt. The first baseman picked up another RBI after Luis Rengifo couldn’t handle his liner at third, giving Goldschmidt an RBI single. The Yankees couldn’t tack on any more in the inning, though.
After Schlittler left the game, it didn’t take long for Milwaukee to get on the board. On the very first pitch reliever Brent Headrick threw in the seventh inning, Bauers crushed a homer into the second deck in right field, cutting into the Yankees’ lead. Headrick came back after that to get through the seventh and the first out of the eighth. Camilo Doval replaced Headrick and got the second out of the seventh before Brice Turang kept the inning alive with a single. Turang then stole second and you knew what was coming after that. William Contreras dropped a single into left field and Turang just beat Cody Bellinger’s throw home, tying the game up. With little room for error, David Bednar came out and threw a nice 1-2-3 inning on just 12 pitches, sending the game to extras.
It seemed like the Yankees would then go down pretty quickly in order in the 10th. Ben Rice and Bellinger couldn’t do anything with the auto-runner at second, with Aaron Judge getting intentionally walked, as is custom. However, McMahon, having come in earlier for Rosario as a defensive replacement, poked a single up the middle to give the Yankees the lead back. Judge would get caught in a rundown after the run scored and the throw home was cut off to end the inning though, and the Yankees would regret missing out on the chance to get insurance runs.
For the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees turned to Fernando Cruz. He got off to a rocky start, as a wild pitch moved the runner up, and he then issued a walk. While a fly out ended up keeping the runner in place in the next at-bat, a Jackson Chourio grounder left Caballero with no play, tying the game back up.
The Yankees then went to Tim Hill, who immediately got a ground ball. However for whatever reason, Hill tried to go to third to get the lead runner. His throw hit Rengifo, the runner, allowing everyone to be safe. Hill then finally did get the second out, but it was a Contreras fly out to right that was deep enough for Aaron Judge’s throw home to be a couple steps late. You can somewhat chalk up Friday’s loss as just running into a freak of nature. Harrison and the pitchers Milwaukee used on Saturday are all pretty good, but the Yankees wasted this one.
Tomorrow, the Yankees and Brewers will wrap up their series with one final game in Milwaukee. It’s also a notable one for the Yankees especially, as Carlos Rodón will make his return from the injured list, opposite Logan Henderson for the Brewers. First pitch in that one will be at 2:10 pm ET.
