ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — First there was sprinting left fielder Cody Bellinger, followed immediately by diving center fielder Trent Grisham and not too long after that leaping shortstop José Caballero.
All three Yankees might have been outdone by sliding reliever Fernando Cruz, who likes to remind his New York teammates he was drafted as an infielder.
Cruz's defensive gem in a game full of them for the Yankees might get the most attention, after the right-hander
cut off Joc Pederson's attempted sacrifice bunt between the mound and third base with two on and nobody out in the eighth inning of New York's 3-2 victory over the Texas Rangers on Tuesday night.
Still sitting down after getting his glove on the ball, Cruz dug the ball out and bounced a throw to third while falling onto his back, and Ryan McMahon's stretch was enough to barely beat a sliding Josh Jung.
MVP slugger Aaron Judge, who was focused on backing up first base from right field because he was worried about a potentially wild throw going in that direction, said he has heard Cruz's chatter about his past.
“I think I might believe him now,” Judge said with a smile. “We'll see. I need to see a couple more good plays like that. I'm more worried of having him just keep doing his thing on the mound. I think we'll be good.”
Cruz escaped the inning with strikeouts of Jake Burger and pinch-hitter Ezequiel Duran, throwing seven consecutive strikes after his defensive masterpiece.
“I think I describe myself as an adrenaline guy,” said the 36-year-old Cruz, who was an infielder when Kansas City drafted him out of Puerto Rico in 2007 but converted to pitching before finally reaching the big leagues with Cincinnati in 2022. “It's just who I am. I locked it in after that, and everything just came out.”
Bellinger opened the bottom of the first by running down Brandon Nimmo's leadoff flyball in the left-field corner, and Grisham sprinted in for a diving grab on Jung's liner for the second out.
In the second inning, Caballero made his leaping play on a soft liner from Evan Carter in shallow left-center.
Grisham had an injury scare in the ninth when his knee banged into the wall chasing Danny Jansen's triple that drove in the first Texas run. He stayed in the game, and manager Aaron Boone said he was fine.
The Rangers had trimmed their deficit to one with slugging but struggling shortstop Corey Seager at the plate, and second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. started the game-ending double play on a grounder. Texas challenged whether Caballero came off the bag taking the throw at second, but replay confirmed the out.
Grisham made another good play when he ran down a deep liner from Pederson on the warning track in right-center in the fourth.
“It’s the defense that supports the pitching,” Boone said after his team's 10th victory in 11 games. “There’s been times when we didn’t score a ton of runs. We didn’t score a ton of runs tonight. You've got to usually play clean when that happens to rack up wins.”
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