Yankees Rally to Beat Royals on Jazz Chisholm's Single in 11th Inning

The Yankees went to extra innings, where they have not been very good this season, and pulled out a 4-3 victory over the Royals on Jazz Chisholm’s RBI single in the 11th inning. Thus, they won their second series of the year over a tough Kansas City team that they could see again in October. Lets get to it.

Sept. 11: Yankees 4, Royals 3 (11)

Well, let’s give it up to the Yankees for this one because they found a way to gut out a big, big victory over the pesky Royals, even when things weren’t looking promising for a good chunk of the night.

“That’s right up there among the best this season,” Aaron Boone said regarding the quality of the win over Kansas City, and he was right. “This is a big series win for us against a really good club over there, that threw a lot of good pitching at us. A lot of guys did a lot of really good things tonight in a game where runs were hard to come by.”

The Royals are tough, and if the Yankees face them in the postseason, I think we all learned over the last three nights that that’s not going to be a comfortable series. Then again, who am I kidding? No series is going to be comfortable for the Yankees.

This one sure didn’t start well. The offense was feeble once again through almost six innings, on top of the nine pathetic innings Tuesday night, and with Kansas City scratching out one run off Luis Gil, it felt like that was all the Royals would need.

But then Juan Soto - moments after fouling a ball off the top of his foot and spending a bit of time recovering - launched a two-run homer two pitches later off Cole Ragans, the only mistake the tough lefty made all night as he left a terrible breaking ball over the middle of the plate, and suddenly the Yankees were ahead 2-1. It was the first home run Ragans has allowed on his curveball all season.

Naturally, Clay Holmes pissed it away minutes later in the seventh, but thereafter, the Yankees got four mostly excellent bullpen innings from Tommy Kahnle, Jake Cousins and Luke Weaver, and that eventually opened the door for Jazz Chisholm to deliver a walk-off infield single with pinch runner Jon Berti sliding home with the winning run.

And with all the excitement at Yankee Stadium, there was just as much at Fenway Park where the Red Sox blew a late lead to Baltimore before walking off the Orioles 5-3 when Tyler O’Neil crushed a three-run homer over the Green Monster in the 10th inning. Thus, the Yankees lead in the AL East is back up to 1.5 games with 16 left to play.

“It just takes heart,” Chisholm said. “We know we’re not playing to our ability right now. Nobody’s hot right now; Cap (Aaron Judge) cooled off a little bit, Soto went into a little rut. But this is how you stay together. This is a championship team, and this is what we do. We grind it out.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Gil lasted only five innings because he battled his command again which is why his pitch count soared to 97. Still, even without his best stuff he allowed just one run on five hits and two walks. He got out of a one-out, bases-loaded jam in the first, left a man at second in the third and stranded two men on base in the fifth. The only run came in the fourth when Michael Massey hit a solo homer to right. This was Gil’s 16th start of the year where he allowed one run or less which is pretty amazing.

➤ Through 5.1 innings, the Yankees had two measly singles and a walk against Ragan, but then he walked Torres and Soto followed with his home run. So with the lead, Boone turned to Holmes in the seventh, hoping that a change in lane would help him. It didn’t. The first two guys singled, and Kyle Isbel eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Salvador Perez who continued to kill the Yankees all night. Over the three games he went 7-for-9 with two walks and six RBI, plus made some sparkling plays both at catcher and at first base. In case you’re wondering, yes, that counts as a blown save for Holmes, No. 12 on the season.

➤ The Yankees didn’t have an at bat with a runner in scoring position for 15 consecutive innings dating back to the eighth inning of Monday’s game until Jose Trevino came up in the seventh with men on first and second and one out. Naturally he killed the opportunity, with a little help from Anthony Volpe. Trevino hit a weak chopper to first where Perez, an aging catcher who occasionally plays first base, made a great play. First, he tagged out Trevino though it took instant replay to confirm that, and then he fired home and nailed Volpe trying to score from second base. He didn’t score because he stuttered twice, initially when he reached third and then again when he was deciding whether to try to race home. Just more fundamentally shitty baseball by the Yankees.

➤ The eighth and ninth innings were maddening because the Royals used flamethrowing reliever Lucas Erceg, exactly the type of bullpen stud the Yankees needed to acquire at the deadline. Instead, the Royals put together a better package and got him from the A’s while Brian Cashman was bringing Mark Leiter and Enyel De Los Santos into our lives. Erceg made the Yankees look silly, which in turn made Cashman look silly.

➤ In the bottom of the ninth, with one out, why the hell was Alex Verdugo batting and not Jasson Dominguez? Verdugo has been one of the worst hitters in MLB since the start of May, but Boone felt that Verdugo was still the better option against Erceg instead of the switch hitting rookie who is the better hitter, and certainly the better home run threat. He would have been batting from the left side which is his strong side. It’s just baffling how Boone loves and trusts Verdugo despite all the evidence that he’s just a horrible hitter.

➤ Then in the 10th, more Boone buffoonery. With the automatic runner at second, Cousins came up with a huge strikeout of Bobby Witt so that meant the easy call was to have Cousins walk the red-hot Perez and set up a double play. Nope. Boone had Cousins pitch to Perez and he seemed unnerved by that, and the way Perez was hitting, who could blame him? Pinch runner Dairon Blanco stole third, so then it became imperative that the Yankees put Perez on because you knew damn well he’d hit a fly ball to get the run home. Nope. Cousins kept pitching, and he uncorked a wild pitch which scored Blanco. Idiotic, and still, the Yankees won in spite of their manager.

➤ The Yankees tied it in their half as Volpe started at second, was bunted to third by Oswaldo Cabrera and scored on a sac fly by pinch hitter Austin Wells.

➤ And then in the 11th, Weaver was fantastic as he went 1-2-3 with the man at second, giving the Yankees a chance to win, and they did. Berti was sent in as the automatic runner and he took third on a Soto groundout so the Royals put Judge on and tried to pitch to Chisholm. They pulled the infield in and Chisholm hit one to short where Witt made a great stop but could not throw home accurately and Berti scored.

➤ “That’s a situation where you don’t want to get too big,” Boone said. “You got them on the ropes, infield in, it’s about putting the ball in play. You got speed on third with Berti, left on left, so I was really pleased he didn’t get too big and just kept it real simple and got it just enough out of the reach out of (Bobby) Witt there.”

Next up at Yankee Stadium are the Red Sox for the final four games of a season series they currently trail 5-4, and you know every one of these games will be a grind because every game against the Red Sox - no matter what the standings say - are grinding slogs.

We all know the Yankees bullpen sucks, but Boston’s isn’t much better. Wednesday night, they had a 2-1 lead in the eighth when Baltimore’s Anthony Santander homered to tie it, and that was the 19th time Boston has blown a lead in the sixth inning or later since the All-Star break. That’s the most in MLB, even more than the Yankees.

But the Red Sox came back to win that game and helped the Yankees out. Starting Thursday, they won’t be in a helping mood because they still have an outside shot at earning a playoff berth. They trail by four games in the race for the third wild-card spot currently held by the Twins so they need to win just about every night which makes a notoriously dangerous opponent led by the face of evil, Rafael Devers, in more dangerous.

The pitching matchups are as follows: Thursday at 7:05 on FOX it’s Nestor Cortes (3.97 ERA) against Cooper Criswell (4.11); Friday at 7:05 on Apple TV it’s Clarke Schmidt (2.34) against Tanner Houck (3.24); Saturday at 1:05 on YES it’s Gerrit Cole (3.36) against Brayan Bello (4.70); and Sunday at 1:35 on YES it’s Carlos Rodon (4.21) against Kutter Crawford (4.09).