The Yankees just seem to love to win with a little flare.
New York scored six runs in the bottom of the seventh to battle back from a two-run deficit and defeat the Oakland Athletics 9-5. A pair of catcher interference calls on Oakland coupled with RBI doubles from Josh Donaldson and Jose Trevino helped lead the Yankees to their 54th win of the year and their second consecutive comeback win.
Marwin Gonzalez also hit an RBI single during the Yankees’ offensive explosion.
“We felt good about our chances to come back and win,” Donaldson said. “At the end of the day we believe in our lineup and we believe in our ability to score runs. We really feel like we’re not out of the game.”
New York had spent the better part of the game chipping away at the Athletic’s lead after they scored five runs in the third inning. DJ LeMahieu walked in the seventh, which began the Yankees’ comeback, and then Aaron Judge reached base after Sean Murphy was called for a catcher’s interference.
Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch and Giancarlo Stanton had his swing interfered with by Murphy’s glove, which drove in a run to cut the Athletics’ lead to 5-4. Donaldson sent a sharp line drive to left field to score two and give New York its first lead since they scored in the bottom of the first.
Two batters later Trevino doubled to left as well to score two more runs to put the Bombers up 8-5 and Gonzalez hit a line-drive single to right to score Trevino.
Jose Trevino has the Bronx singing 🎶#YANKSonYES LIVE: https://t.co/aRu5PF6iD2 pic.twitter.com/GURznx0ZcU
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) June 28, 2022
Jordan Montgomery pitched 6.2 innings for the Yankees, giving up five runs while striking out six batters and walking one. The five runs allowed marked a new season-high for Montgomery, who had just set it in his previous start against the Tampa Bay Rays last Wednesday.
“I think it’s just such a collective group, collective effort,” Rizzo said. “I think when one guy, we’re so close, when guys stumble we want to pick them up and bail them out. Him going six or close to going six, it was a good effort and (Albert) Abreu coming in and throwing strikes and doing what he does is really nice, too.”
Abreu came into the game and pitched 2.1 innings of relief to seal the victory for New York. He picked up the win while striking out four batters.
Montgomery said he was “still sick” about the third inning when surrendered five, but told reporters after the game that he just had to buckle down.
“I think it really comes down to three bad pitches,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about Montgomery’s start. “He’s two outs and I think they scored all their runs with two outs. … It was just a few mistake pitches that really hurt him obviously, but Monty is always good about whatever is going on just continues to battle through.
“To get us deep in the seventh inning there was a gutsy outing.”
Rizzo put the Yankees in front early in the game with a solo home run in the bottom of the first. The New York first baseman got a hold of an 0-1 fastball that he sent 366 feet into the first row of the right-field stands.
The home run was his 20th of the season. After appearing in 73 games this season, it marked the fewest number of games in his career that he’s needed to hit 20 homers.
The Yankees threatened the next inning, first by Josh Donaldson getting on first on a walk and then Marwin Gonzalez doubling into the right-field corner to put runners on second and third with two outs.
The threat came to an end when Joey Gallo struck out looking on a 1-2 sinker.
The missed opportunity came back to haunt the Yankees in the next inning when the Athletics scored five runs to take the lead. It started with Nick Allen getting walked and Christian Bethancourt singling to set the stage for Ramon Laureano to double off the top of the left-field wall to tie the game.
Sean Murphy was hit by a 1-2 pitch that erased Montgomery’s chance to get out of the inning and Elvis Andrus doubled into the corner to drive in three runs to put Oakland ahead 4-1. A groundball down the first base line by Sheldon Neuse drove in Andrus for the fifth run of the inning.
The Yankees managed to get one run back in the bottom of the fourth inning when Giancarlo Stanton sent a solo shot of his own to left field to cut the deficit to 5-2. The homer was his fourth in his last five games.
Giancarlo's 4th home run in the past 5 dayspic.twitter.com/EzFSAjOh3k
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 28, 2022
The Bronx Bombers continued to cut the Athletics’ lead, cutting it to a 5-3 game in the fifth when Aaron Judge hit an RBI single that was just out of the reach of Andrus to drive in DJ LeMahieu from second base.
