BRONX, NY — The Yankees will live to fight at least one more day.
Austin Wells lined a single down the right-field line, scoring Jazz Chisholm Jr. from first, in the bottom of the eighth inning against Boston Red Sox reliever Garrett Whitlock to lift the Bronx Bombers to a 4-3 victory over their arch rivals in Game 2 of the American League Wild Card Series on Wednesday night in the Bronx.
“What a game,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s been two great games, these first two. A lot of big plays on both sides.”
With it comes a winner-take-all Game 3, to be played on Thursday night at Yankee Stadium. The winner advances to the ALDS to meet the No. 1 seed Toronto Blue Jays.
The Red Sox came back twice behind Trevor Story, who drove in all three runs against Yankees starter Carlos Rodon to knot the game up at three all in the sixth inning. But New York rallied with two outs in the eighth to keep its season alive.
Chisholm, who was controversially not in the starting lineup in Game 1 against Boston’s southpaw ace Garrett Crochet, worked out a seven-pitch walk. Wells proceeded to grind out a full-count, and with Chisholm running, he lined a low changeup that stayed fair by inches inside the right-field foul line. Red Sox right fielder Nate Eaton’s strong throw was just a fraction late, as Chisholm slid head-first safely into home.
“I just got a pitch to put in play,” Wells said. “[Whitlock] was making some good pitches there throughout the at-bat. I felt like I put a good swing on one of his best pitches.”
“Going through my head, I’m already running, so any ball that an outfielder moves to his left or right for, I gotta score,” Chisholm added. “That’s what I was thinking.”
Ben Rice, another lefty bat left out in Game 1, got the Yankees started off with a bang on Wednesday night in the bottom of the first when he jumped on the first pitch he saw from Red Sox starter Brayan Bello and ripped it into the right-field seats for a two-run home run.
The left-handed bat, who hit 26 home runs in the regular season, became the first Yankee since Shane Spencer in 1998 to homer in his first-career postseason at-bat.
“It felt amazing,” Rice said. “Just coming off the of the loss yesterday, too, and to set the tone for us there early in the first inning, get us out to a lead. It felt really good.”
Rodon coughed it up in the third, partly due to his bad fundamentals. After allowing a lead-off single to Jarren Duran and a walk to Ceddanne Rafaeala, he spiked a throw to first off a Nick Sogard sacrifice bunt toward the third-base side of the mound. Chisholm, who cycled to first with Rice playing in, could not stay on the bag while reeling in the bad throw.
Story proceeded to tie the game with a two-run single, though a sharp double-play turned by Chisholm limited the damage to keep things level.
With the Yankees deploying a lefty-laden lineup with the right-handed Bello on the mound, and with Crochet saving the bullpen with his 7.2-inning gem in Game 1, Red Sox manager Alex Cora’s short leash on his starter lasted just 2.1 innings.
Aaron Judge gave the Yankees the lead in the bottom of the fifth off of reliever Justin Slaten with a single that popped out of the grasp of a diving Duran in left, scoring Trent Grisham from second. Grisham reached on a two-out walk, then advanced into scoring position on a wild pitch.
“He just missed it,” Cora said of Duran’s play.
Rodon, once again, though, gave it back in a flash. Leading off the top of the sixth, Story took a 2-0 fastball that sat in the heart of the zone and pulled it into the left-center-field seats to tie it back up at three apiece.
After walking the next batter, Alex Bregman, Boone walked to the mound, appearing ready to pull Rodon, but left him after a short conversation. It initially paid off as he coaxed a pop-up and an inning-ending double play, but he fell apart in the seventh, walking Nate Eaton and plunking Duran to put the first two lead-off men on.
Boone gave the lefty the hook — Rodon finished with six-plus innings pitched while allowing three runs on four hits with six strikeouts and three walks — for Fernando Cruz. The right-handed reliever got the first two men he faced before pinch-hitter Masataka Yoshida, who put the Red Sox ahead the night before in the same situation, had his roller snared by a diving Chisholm, which he beat out for an infield hit to load the bases.
The play by Chisholm, though, saved a run.
“You see a ground ball, you gotta stop it, keep it in the infield,” Chisholm said. “You gotta keep that run from scoring. I feel like at that point, it would’ve been a really crucial run. So I was just doing all I could to keep the ball in the infield.”
“That play was excellent,” Boone added.
Against the red-hot Story, Cruz left a fastball middle-middle, which the Sox shortstop gave a ride 393 feet to dead center — plenty of room for Grisham to reel it in.
Cruz leapt off the mound, removed his hat, put it in his glove while the ball was in the air, and then began thumping his chest and pumping his fists all the way to the Yankees’ dugout in wild celebration — not the last of the night.
