It got a little ugly at the end, but for the large majority of this game the Yankees were coasting to victory. An early lead ballooned into a romp thanks to big hits from Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr., Jasson Domínguez took it into blowout territory with a blast of his own, and just for fun, the bullpen got their meltdown fix in when it didn’t ultimately matter. The 10-0 lead was halved, but a 10-5 win goes down the same in the books.
The Yankees sent Cam Schlittler out to the mound hoping he would
follow up the best start of his career to this point with another gem, and the rookie delivered on that promise. He started his night off with a strikeout of James Wood, and after stranding a two-out single from Luis García Jr. he wouldn’t allow another hit until the fourth inning. His offense, meanwhile, got him some breathing room: it started small with a Cody Bellinger sacrifice fly in the first and went loud with a 435-foot Ben Rice solo shot in the third inning.
Schlittler did get into a bit of a jam in the fourth, as CJ Abrams led off with a single and moved to third on a Josh Bell single, putting runners on the corners with one out. Schlittler buckled down though, getting Riley Adams to pop up before Rice caught Bell attempting to steal second base to end the frame.
An inning later, the Yankees blew the door wide open. José Caballero led off with a single and Trent Grisham followed suit, setting up Judge to hit a ground-rule double to score the first run of the frame. Cody Bellinger then scorched a single up the middle to score Grisham and Judge, and Chisholm brought him along for the ride when he blasted a ball out to right field for a two-run shot. When the dust settled, the Bombers had brought home five and made it a 7-0 game.
Now in cruise control mode, Schlittler could’ve stumbled when he put two aboard with no outs in the sixth. Instead, he finished his night on a high note, striking out García and inducing a double-play ball out of Bell to end the inning. When all was said and done, Schlittler went six shutout innings, allowing four hits and three walks while striking out eight Nationals. It was his second straight start of at least six innings and both times he blanked the opposing offense, continuing to progress as the season goes on. His name should now be firmly in the Yankees’ coaching staffs minds when planning out a postseason rotation, as the top pitching prospect could be blossoming just at the right time.
The lead was already monumental at this point, but the Yankees didn’t take their foot off the pedal. In the seventh inning, after a pair of fly outs put the frame in jeopardy of ending in short order, Chisholm kept the rally alive with a walk and Paul Goldschmidt singled to put two on for Domínguez, who rocketed one out to right field. The three-run blast pushed the lead into double-digits, and at that point all worries were off the table.
Or, at least they should have been. Yerry De Los Santos came in to start the seventh inning in relief of Schlittler, and Aaron Boone attempted to let him ride it out for a rare three-inning save despite the massive lead. He was nails for the first two innings, but trouble came in the ninth when he loaded the bases despite getting a double-play to erase a leadoff single, and then walked in a batter. Forced to finally make a change, Boone went to Mark Leiter Jr., and he promptly served up a grand slam to Jacob Young to cut the deficit in half. Still, it amounted to nothing as Leiter then got Wood to strike out to end it, but the game became unnecessarily nerve-wracking for a moment there.
Now boasting back-to-back wins in their pocket, the Yankees will look to make it a true winning streak and take the series tomorrow with Luis Gil on the mound going up against Washington’s ace MacKenzie Gore. First pitch will be at 7:05 p.m. EST.
