For seven innings on Thursday night, Seattle Mariners starting pitcher Bryan Woo befuddled New York Yankees bats in the Bronx.
“It felt like we were getting dominated,” skipper Aaron Boone said of Woo’s brilliance.
The Seattle right-hander walked the first two men he faced, then retired the next 21 without surrendering a hit while the Mariners opened up a 5-0 lead. Since 1961, only one team had come back and won a game in which they were being no-hit and trailed by five after seven innings.
Now, make that two.
The Yankees (52-41) staged a five-run comeback across the eighth and ninth innings before Aaron Judge’s sacrifice fly plated Anthony Volpe to give the hosts one of the most unlikely victories Major League Baseball has seen in recent memory.
“Baseball is funny like that,” Boone said. “The guys didn’t give up. Just kept grinding at-bats.”
Jazz Chisholm broke up Woo’s no-hit bid to lead off the eighth with a clean single. He ultimately came in to score on Austin Wells’ sacrifice fly before Giancarlo Stanton’s pinch-hit two-run homer against Mariners reliever Matt Brash quickly cut New York’s deficit to just two.
It was the first pinch-hit home run of Stanton’s career, after previously going 5-for-48 in the role.
“No lead is safe,” Stanton said. “I had to make sure I was ready to go, and it happens quick. Never put anything past this lineup.”
In the ninth, the Yankees scratched two off All-Star closer Anthony Munoz, who was tipping his slider.
Trent Grisham singled and moved to second on Cody Bellinger’s one-out hit. From second, he wildly flapped his arms when Munoz was tipping his slider to alert the man at the plate.
After Chisholm flew out, Ben Rice walked to load the bases before Austin Wells tied things up with a two-out, two-run single.
“We can come back late,” Wells said. “It’s a total team effort to be in that situation at the end: Pitchers making it close and the at-bats not giving in. That was really cool.”
Yankees reliever Devin Williams kept the Mariners off the board in the top of the 10th.
After Oswald Peraza failed to move the ghost runner, Volpe, to third, in the bottom of the frame, Mariners reliever Gabe Speier intentionally walked Paul Goldschmidt and then walked Grisham to load the bases.
Judge lifted a fly ball, not too deep, to center, where Julio Rodriguez’s strike to home appeared to beat Volpe. But the Yankees’ shortstop’s swim move avoided the tag of catcher Cal Raleigh, which was upheld after a review as the game-winning run.
“I knew who was at third, so my whole thought going into it was get the ball in the air and let [Volpe] take care of the rest,” Judge said. “What a great slide. There’s nobody else I’d want out there in a situation like that besides Volpe.”
