The 2026 Yankees have been masters of the crooked number. The fun comes in bunches this year, and that theme continued in Baltimore on Tuesday night as the Yankees plated five in the third inning en route to a 6-2 series-evening win. Paul Goldschmidt hit a leadoff homer on the game’s first pitch, and Trent Grisham’s three-run shot in the third was the coup de grace as the Yanks snapped a four-game skid. Will Warren worked around poor defense to turn in a strong winning start, opening the door for a potential series win tomorrow at Camden Yards.
Let’s not waste any time—the Yankees sure didn’t. With a recent spate of injuries testing New York’s depth, it was comforting to see Goldschmidt set the tone from the words “play ball” by taking Trevor Rogers’ first delivery into the left field stands for a leadoff home run. Goldy’s fourth homer of the year overall—which zipped over our own lead editor Andrew Mearns’ head—got the Bombers off to a strong start.
Warren pitched around an automatic double in the home second to make that lead stand up. In the top of the third, just as Rogers was finding his rhythm, the Yankees got him to stagger off the beat. A leadoff hit from Austin Wells was quickly followed by consecutive walks to Aaron Judge and Ben Rice, loading the bags for Cody Bellinger. Cody successfully put the ball in play, hitting a shot up the middle and beating out a would-be double play turn from Gunnar Henderson to earn an RBI fielder’s choice.
From there, the Yankees’ two-out success they’ve enjoyed for most of the year returned from its brief absence. Amed Rosario plated Judge on a bouncing infield hit to third base which continued Rogers’ own early-season troubles with the big inning. It only got worse for the southpaw when Grisham stepped into the box.
Ever the cool customer, Grisham worked the count full on the laboring Oriole starter before finding a pitch he liked middle-in. He corked a payoff fastball into the right-center gap which continued to carry to the gap. Trent knew he got it, but I’m not sure too many folks in attendance (Andrew included?) expected that ball to clear the fence for a backbreaking three-run homer.
Grisham’s sixth homer gave him 26 RBI in ‘26, and made it 6-0 Yankees. If this sounds vaguely familiar, well, recall the six-run sixth inning the Big Sleep starred last week to cement six straight series wins. The pattern-recognition brain recognizes patterns, though there’s certainly no reason to this rhyme.
The rest of Warren’s day on the mound was eventful, to say the least. Back-to-back misplays from the Yankee infield loaded the bases with nobody out, compelling the Mississippian to make his way through the top of Baltimore’s order. He did splendidly, getting Taylor Ward to pop out before coaxing a double-play ball from Adley Rutschman that Rosario mercifully fielded cleanly to start an inning-ending 4-6-3.
After a palate cleanser in a gorgeous running catch from Bellinger in foul ground to wrap up the fourth, more shenanigans from Rosario and a wild pitch gave Baltimore a free runner in scoring position. It was a fresh lemon which the struggling Gunnar Henderson could not squeeze into lemonade.
Still, the extra pitches his infield forced him to throw led Warren to run out of steam with two outs in the sixth inning—much to his extreme annoyance, I’m sure. Samuel Basallo broke the seal with an RBI single, then Tyler O’Neill belted a gapper to right center that Grisham, shaded to the opposite side, could not quite corral on a dive. The ball bounced away from him enabling Basallo to score easily.
Warren promptly exited having thrown 96 pitches, the most from him in a single start this year. Fernando Cruz cleaned up the minor spill, closing Will’s line at 5.2 innings with two runs on four hits, a walk, and six punchouts. Considering that shoddy defensive work, his line deserved to be much prettier—but he did a great job bouncing back from a tough day in the Bronx against Texas.
The O’s didn’t go away. Cruz did his job grabbing four key outs, but Jake Bird couldn’t subdue his fellow avian friends. Base hits from Ward and Pete Alonso necessitated a visit from Aaron Boone and a move for Tim Hill to face the grooving Basallo. Hill arguably did his job too well, inducing a weak dribbler which burnt an out to move both runners up 90 feet. But sometimes the sequencing just works out for you. O’Neill bounced to the hot corner to fall to 2-for-26 against left-handed pitching on the season, and another opposing rally was left stranded on the Hillside.
It didn’t result in any runs, but may I just say: the overturned low-third-strike-on-Judge-to-base-hit combo we saw in the top of the ninth was exquisite. It felt like New York scored there, even though Ben Rice popped out a batter later to strand a pair. Either way, the Yanks carried a four-run lead into the ninth inning for David Bednar.
The Renegade retrieved his bounty (don’t yell at me, I know that’s not how the song goes) with a squeaky-clean ninth inning. He started by striking out Colton Cowser on a filthy splitter, then grabbed a groundout and an easy fly ball right to secure the Yankees’ 27th win. The extremely stressful version of Bednar we saw in April seems to have logged off in May. And thankful we all are for it.
Don’t forget, Prime Video fans and haters! Amazon’s got the rights for the Wednesday game—even a suddenly-rescheduled matinee! Max Fried is thankful not to have to play stopper for a losing streak—he’ll face Kyle Bradish, who wasn’t formally announced until the ninth. First pitch is at 1:05 pm tomorrow!
