As was the case with their series loss against the Blue Jays that wrapped up at the start of the week, there wasn’t much offense on display tonight. However, Spencer Jones hit his second home run in as many days — a two-run moonshot to give them the lead in the second — while Cam Schlittler battled for six gritty innings as the Yankees secured a series-opening victory, 3-1.
Schlittler took an inning to dial in his command, issuing a leadoff single to Brett Bateman, a walk to Alejandro Kirk, and a single to Jesús Sánchez. However, a double play erased the Bateman single and an Ernie Clement grounder ended the inning, Paul Goldschmidt making a pair of important scoops at second. Things sharpened up a little in the second, Schlittler working a 1-2-3 inning on just six pitches.
We unusually saw a pair of substitutions in the bottom of the first. Amed Rosario worked a four-pitch walk and was immediately pinch-run for by Jazz Chisholm Jr., which was perhaps always the plan given the lefty opener and righty bulk reliever. Speaking of that opener, Mason Fluharty also walked Ben Rice, prompting John Schneider to call on Spencer Arrighetti to face George Lombard Jr., which paid off as Lombard struck out to strand a pair and make it 20 straight games without a first inning run.
The bottom of the second brought echoes of Wednesday night’s win over the Orioles. In a moment eerily similar to Pete Alonso’s home-run-turned-foul-ball that controversially was not overturned by replay, Spencer Jones hit a towering fly ball down the right field line that was called a home run on the field. None of the replay angles captured the moment the ball left the field of play given the height of the blast, so the call on the field stood as a two-run homer following Trent Grisham’s leadoff walk, giving Jones home runs in back-to-back games.
The imprecision with location returned for Schlittler in the third, Myles Straw and Kirk drawing a pair of walks. However, Schlittler finally found a consistent lane for his four-seamer and tallied his first strikeout of the night on four-straight heaters just above the zone to Sánchez. The fourth was more of the same, starting with a pair of singles by Clement and Kazuma Okamoto before a grounder advanced the pair into scoring position with one out. Schlittler got a huge strikeout of Charles McAdoo with overpowering four-seamers, but had to battle Straw for eight pitches before a popup to short ended the frame and stranded the pair.
There was a lot to love about the approach from the bottom of the Yankees order in the fourth. Lombard led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Grisham drew a four-pitch walk and Jones hit a swinging bunt to the right side to advance both runners into scoring position. José Caballero then worked a full count before driving the payoff pitch to deep center to plate Lombard as their third run.
Schlittler finally faltered in the fifth under the weight of all the extra work he was creating for himself. Bateman led off with a double into the corner in left. Schlittler then got to 1-2 against Kirk, but left a four-seamer in probably the only spot where Kirk could get a hit, grounding a low-and-away fastball through the hole on the right side to plate Bateman and break up the shutout. To his credit, Schlittler ended the threat there by getting Sánchez to bounce into the inning ending double play. He saved his best for last, striking out Clement and Valenzuela on a pair of filthy curveballs below the zone in the sixth.
It was a grind in more than one sense of the word for Schlittler. I’m sure he won’t be thrilled by the three walks. I also bet he’ll be even more annoyed that he was able to get to two strikes with relative ease, only to watch his command then abandon him when going for the strikeout. That invariably led to a lot of extra pitches being thrown and quite a few full counts, Schlitter expending way more energy early than he would have liked which likely prevented him from going really deep in this game. All this being said, we’ve gotten to the point where we have to nitpick the minor faults of a down performance relative to the standard of excellence that Schlittler has set. You can only be so critical of six innings of one-run ball, Schlittler allowing six hits and three walks with four strikeouts on 96 pitches.
The Yankees certainly needed that result from Schlittler given the lack of production after the Caballero sac fly. Goldschmidt and Heliot Ramos reached on singles in the fifth but back-to-back strikeouts by Rice and Lombard stranded them in place. Rice reached second in the eighth after a walk, but again consecutive strikeouts, this time by Lombard and Grisham, left the Yankees 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position while stranding six.
Brent Headrick came in for the seventh and retired the first two batters without much issue. He got to two strikes against Bateman, but grooved a four-seamer that the center fielder drove into the gap in right-center. Jones covered a ton of ground and almost made a stunning sliding catch, but the ball rolled out of his glove as he hit the ground and Bateman stood on third with a triple. However, Headrick made his best pitches of the inning against pinch-hitter George Springer and struck him out on a nasty splitter to strand the runner at third. Blackburn was handed the eighth and navigated around a one-out double by Sánchez that probably gets caught if it was Cody Bellinger instead of Ramos in left, but it was no harm no foul with Blackburn retiring the next two batters.
That handed the ball to David Bednar with a 3-1 lead to protect in the ninth. He allowed a leadoff automatic double that one-hopped the wall in left to Valenzuela on a well-located 2-2 heater, but retired McAdoo and Straw to pull within an out of the save. That brought leadoff hitter Bateman to the plate, 3-for-4 with a double and triple on the day, but he was no match for Bednar, who made him look silly on a splitter in the dirt for the victory-sealing strikeout.
It’s just the start the Yankees needed to this crucial 10-game homestand — especially because the Rays lost in Baltimore to shrink their AL East lead to three games. New York will look to keep the momentum rolling tomorrow, going for their sixth straight win with the ascendant Ryan Weathers facing off against Blue Jays ace Dylan Cease. First pitch is scheduled for 1:35 pm ET with the broadcast remaining on YES.
