We’ve seen this game a lot lately. The starting pitcher has himself a good day, the bullpen has arguably a better day, and the lineup just manages to scratch across enough runs for the club to win. Tonight it wasn’t even “the lineup” so much as it was “just Trent Grisham”, but every win counts the same. Critically, the win tonight came on a bad night for Tampa, and the Yankees took the series opener in Maryland, 3-1 over the Orioles your final score.
It’s felt like the Yankees haven’t scored in the first half of a game since June, so it was nice to see Trent Grisham give his team the lead relatively early for once:
We’ll have more to admire about Trent a little later.
I thought Carlos Rodón was…fine? in his return to game action. We got 66 pitches out of the veteran lefty, good for four innings after he threw 54 in his final rehab outing. A 2:1 K:BB ratio kinda highlights the problems he’s had with free passes all year, a likely symptom of him not yet being 100 percent stretched out between his two injuries.
I will give him his due on one play though. One of the things that’s troubled Rodón since signing with the Yankees is his tendency to get spooked — he’ll lose a guy in a tough AB or give up a big hit, and he seemingly can’t find a way to settle down. In the second inning, he walked Christian Encarnacion-Strand before Leody Taveras singled. Carlos got the groundball that he needed, ticketed right for Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Jazz bobbled it. Instead of an inning-ending double play, we had the bases loaded, one out.
Jazz seemed to have a case with second-base umpire Ryan Additon, who looked like he was standing in Chisholm’s line of sight. That’s something you learn in Little League though, that you can ask an umpire to shift position and as long as you’re not a complete hater or lunatic, they’ll probably acquiesce. For whatever reason that didn’t happen, and Jazz was dinged with an error, the latest example in a long season where he has done himself no favors.
This is exactly the kind of thing that would make you think Rodón would fall apart, but he didn’t. He got a pair of strikeouts — one a great challenge by Austin Wells — to get out of danger.
Coby Mayo did tag Carlos for a solo shot to make it 1-1, but that was the extent of the damage against the southpaw. With Max Fried going on the IL, the Yankees can’t really afford to baby Rodón back, but repeating this effort in five days, with another 10-15 pitches allowed, would be welcome.
Knotted at 1-1, Spencer Jones and George Lombard Jr. both singled to get the Yankees in business with one out in the seventh. Aaron Boone began pulling strings against lefty reliever Josh Walker, deploying both Paul Goldschmidt and Amed Rosario from the bench. Goldy walked but Rose couldn’t deliver with the bases loaded, turning the lineup over and leaving Grisham as the team’s best hope. He delivered:
That’s Trent Grisham 3, Orioles 1, and one of the league’s better bullpens just had to do their job.
Enter Brett Headrick, who was pretty rocky — not at all what we’re accustomed to. A leadoff single was followed by a titanic 10-pitch walk to put two on, and Headrick had already thrown more pitches to the two men than he often throws in an overall appearance. He did blow strikes past Jeremiah Johnson before getting Jackson Holliday to fly out, a rather lazy ball that Heliot Ramos seemed to struggle to find. With Pete Alonso looming, Boone went to Fernando Cruz, who gave up a liner that found Spencer Jones’ glove. Threat averted.
David Bednar rebounded well from a blown save Sunday, one that wasn’t his fault, and nailed down the save in the ninth. At the time the final out was recorded, the Blue Jays were up on the Rays 10-5 at the Trop, and if that score holds (editor’s note: the score held!) the Yankees all of a sudden would be just five games back in the loss column. We can see Cody Bellinger’s return, even if Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge are a little fuzzier, a little further toward the horizon.
Will Warren’s likely bullpen demotion was staved off by Fried’s injury, and the righthander will be tapped to start game two of this set tomorrow. Perhaps no pitcher in the entire division needs a good start as much as Warren does given his track record of late, so hopefully he can figure out what’s plaguing him in time for a solid outing. First pitch of that contest once again comes at 6:35pm Eastern in Baltimore.