In between, there was a connecting flight through Detroit, a late afternoon arrival in the visiting clubhouse, and finally, a summoning to the mound with the bases loaded, one out, the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead in the 10th inning of a game that was already four hours old and one of the most unsafe hitters in the Royals lineup, Kendrys Morales, licking his chops at the prospect of sending the rain-soaked diehards in the stands home happy.
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Masahiro Tanaka had started and given the Yankees five strong innings before Mother Nature sent him to the showers with a 59-minute rain delay.
Peter Moylan had pitched for the fourth straight day. It was Shreve’s first career save, and his first at any level since 2014 with the Triple-A Gwinnett Braves. So, he summoned former starter Chris Young to the mound to hold down the Yankees, and he managed to get through one shaky inning before everything unraveled. Instead, his double advanced Didi Gregorius to third, and Gregorius went on to score on Brian McCann’s sac fly.
“What other options did I have?” “Unless I could have pulled somebody out of the stands ‘Hey, you’ve ever pitched before?'” Betances had already thrown two innings, so Girardi made a decision to gamble on the nerve-wracking middle relief.
Jacoby Ellsbury, who had four hits and drove in the winning run in the 10th inning Tuesday, is a career.355, 65-for-183, against the Royals. Kendrys Morales flew out to finish the game. Kansas City are 18-4 in their last 22 games on grass and are 20-7 in their last 27 overall while the under is 7-3-1 in their last 11 home games. “There’s a toughness in there and these guys really want it”. Castro parked a 93 mile per hour fastball over the left-center fence after Gregorius lifted a sacrifice fly to left field. Two of the hits were homers, a two-run job by Morales and a solo shot by Hosmer.
The righthander was the Yankees’ sixth reliever of the night. But after Soria walked Brett Gardner to load the bases, Ellsbury lined a single off Soria’s leg for his fourth hit of the game. Speedsters Raul Mondesi and Jarrod Dyson were on third and second. But with the bases loaded and one out, Gary Sanchez smoked a liner that third baseman Cheslor Cuthbert snagged easily, and Mark Teixeira grounded out to the shortstop in a shift toward second base. He wound up stranded there when Paulo Orlando ripped a line drive right at Castro at second base.
He escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the 12th but was not as fortunate in the 13th.
“It was a really tough situation”, Girardi said. “Everybody is going to be able to recharge a little bit”.
Clippard narrowly wiggled out of trouble in a long seventh, so Girardi tried to get just a couple batters out of him to cut some of Betances’ workload. Yankees OF prospect Ben Gamel was named the MVP of the International League, where he is hitting.308 and leads the league with 80 runs and is third with 149 hits. “This is a guy that went through an injury a couple of years ago”, Girardi said.
Royals: CF Lorenzo Cain (sprained wrist) got the night off. The Royals shored up their taxed bullpen by recalling Alexander and RHP Brooks Pounders from Triple-A Omaha and optioning INF Christian Colon to the same club. Both pitchers will be in uniform for tonight’s game against the New York Yankees.
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“That was an easy ground ball right to me”. “It’s probably not a day-to-day thing”. Wang tossed two scoreless innings in the game and did not appear to have any pain.
