BRONX, NY – The Bronx Bombers lived up to their nickname Tuesday night, erupting for a ten-run seventh inning — punctuated by Austin Wells’ first career grand slam — to steamroll the San Diego Padres, 12-3, at Yankee Stadium.
Trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, nearly every Yankee got in on the action. Jasson Dominguez sparked the rally with a leadoff double against reliever Adrian Morejon. Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells strung together a pair of singles that scored Dominguez and tied the ballgame.
A double steal from Volpe and Wells prompted an intentional walk to pinch-hitter Paul Goldschmidt. The Padres called upon lefty reliever, and former Yankee, Wandy Peralta, who walked Trent Grisham on four pitches and plated the go-ahead run. Ben Rice then ripped his second double of the evening, driving in a pair of runs to make it 6-3.
With first base open, Peralta opted to intentionally walk Aaron Judge. But it didn’t matter who was at the dish – the Yanks just kept on hitting. Cody Bellinger and Volpe both notched RBI singles, stretching the lead to five and loading the bases for Wells.
After working the count full, the lefty-swinging catcher sat back on a low changeup and connected for his second hit of the inning, a no-doubt grand slam into the right field seats.
“Great” was the word that Yankee manager Aaron Boone used to describe Wells’ seventh-inning at-bats, which yielded five RBIs.
“One, he jumped and smoked it into the hole, and then just a real patient at-bat where they were spinning him a little bit, and he left no doubt on one,” Boone said. “Two different kinds of at-bats, but both were strong.”
Added Wells: “That was a lot of fun to watch and a lot of fun to be a part of.”
The offensive surge represented the club’s most explosive inning since they put up 11 runs in the second against the Texas Rangers on July 28, 2015 (h/t Erik Boland, Newsday).
Right-handed starter Clarke Schmidt gave his team exactly what they needed, turning in six innings of two-run ball with seven hits and four walks on 85 pitches. His season ERA is down to 4.79 across four starts.
Both of Schmidt’s runs came across in the fourth inning. After surrendering back-to-back singles to Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill, the righty walked Gavin Sheets to load the bases. Schmidt then issued a run-scoring balk, which Jason Heyward followed up with a sacrifice fly that gave San Diego a 2-0 lead.
The Yankees fired back immediately in the home half of the frame with two runs of their own off starter Michael King. The former Yankee, who headlined the trade package to land Juan Soto last season, took the mound for the first time against his former club. Judge provided King with the same “welcome back” gift he gave to Nestor Cortes in March – a solo home run.
The Yankee captain halved the deficit with a 341-foot blast, crushing his former teammate’s 2-2 fastball over the short porch for his twelfth homer of the season. Dominguez piggybacked off Bellinger’s walk with a single to right field; Fernando Tatis Jr. tried to gun down the runner at third, but overthrew the bag and Bellinger trotted home to even up the score.
Southpaw sidearmer Tim Hill allowed singles to Gavin Sheets and Elias Diaz before handing the ball off to Fernando Cruz, who surrendered an RBI double to Tatis that made it a 3-2 ballgame in the top of the seventh. Cruz issued a two-out walk to Luis Arraez that loaded the bases for Machado, but the right-hander fooled the star third baseman with his patented splitter to escape the jam and limit the damage.
The Yankees (20-16) look to take the three-game series against the Padres (23-12) on Wednesday night.
