An Oswaldo Cabrera grand slam in the first inning put the Yankees ahead in the first inning and the Bronx Bombers never looked back as they exploded for 14 runs on Wednesday night. In the end, they came away with a 14-2 win over the Pirates on a night that all eyes were focused on Aaron Judge and his chase of Roger Maris’ 61 home run record.
A night after the Yankees slugger hit his 60th of the season, Judge went 2-for-5 against Pirates starter Roansy Contreras, but didn’t send a shot over the outfield wall for the record-tying 61st of the year that brought 46,175 fans to the Bronx on Wednesday night.
Members of the Maris family had been on hand for Wednesday’s game.
The victory helped the Yankees sweet complete the two-game sweep of the pirates as New York closed in on the end of the regular season. The Yankees had come into Wednesday’s game with a 5.5-game lead in the American League East.
New York had opened up a 6-2 lead through the first seven innings of the game before the offense exploded in the eighth inning for eight runs, which included Gleyber Torres homering twice in the inning.
Torres’ first homer in the eighth came on a 1-1 pitch that he sent into the right field stands to make it 7-2. Cabrera drove in a run later in the inning on a double to left and a Harrison Bader doubled to put two more runs on the board to make it a 10-2 game.
Jose Trevino doubled to drive in the game’s 11th run and Torres rounded out the scoring with a three-run homer.
Luis Severino, who was reinstated from the 60-day injured list earlier in the day, threw five innings in his first start since July 13. Severino struck out six batters and gave up just two hits and one run on Wednesday night.
Lucas Luetge pitched two innings of relief, Ron Marinaccio threw an inning and Greg Weisseert closed out the game for the Yankees.
Cabrera’s grand slam came after Judge doubled to start the bottom of the first and Gleyber Torres walked. Giancarlo Stanton Walked a few batters later to load the bases and Cabrera hit a shot 403 feet to right center field for his first major league grand slam.
The Pirates made their way onto the board in the fourth inning when Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a long fly ball to right field, which allowed Rodolfo Castro to score from third to cut the Yankees’ lead to 4-1.
New York added two more runs in the bottom of the fifth when Torres hit a line drive single to score Judge, who had hit a ground-rule double earlier in the inning. Josh Donaldson drove in Torres on the next at-bat with a single to center field to make it 6-1 Bombers.
Hayes drove in his second run of the game for the Pirates in the top of the sixth when he singled to drive in Castro.
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