WASHINGTON — What Ben Rice did in the top of the eighth inning Sunday afternoon will not do him much good Monday night in the Home Run Derby.
But for the Yankees on Sunday, it was plenty good enough.
Rice drilled a two-out triple off the wall in left-center, scoring a pair of runs that turned another late deficit into a one-run lead and an eventual 5-3 win over the Nationals, completing a sweep with comebacks in the eighth inning or later in all three games at Nationals Park.
The Yankees (54-42) flew into the All-Star break on a four-game winning streak, serving as something of a cleanse (they hope) from a brutal 5-15 stretch they endured before it. By the end of Sunday, they had inched within three games of the Rays for first place in the AL East.
An awful Nationals bullpen had a helping hand in that, blowing all three games after they led 3-2 in the ninth inning Friday, 2-0 in the eighth inning Saturday and 3-2 in the eighth inning Sunday.
Max Schuemann started this comeback with a two-out single against lefty Andrew Alvarez before Trent Grisham drew a walk. Rice then came up and worked a tough at-bat before belting a deep fly ball that came a few feet shy of being his 30th home run. But he settled for a two-run triple that flipped the game and put the Yankees up 4-3.
They added an insurance run in the ninth on José Caballero’s sacrifice fly, giving Paul Blackburn some more breathing room as he finished the six-out save when David Bednar and Fernando Cruz were not available.
The Yankees led 2-1 after five innings before the Nationals (48-49) tied it in the sixth on Curtis Mead’s pinch-hit home run off Tim Hill and then took the lead in the seventh. Angel Chivilli had a runner on second and two outs when he induced a ground ball to second base that should have ended the inning, but after Jazz Chisholm Jr. made a sliding stop, he threw high to first base, allowing the runner to score and put the Nationals ahead 3-2.
For most of the day, the Yankees were stifled by Nationals righty Cade Cavalli, who allowed just two runs (on RBI singles from Chisholm and Austin Wells) across seven innings.
Will Warren navigated traffic, using three double plays in five innings to limit the Nationals to just one run while allowing four hits and two walks.
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For the second straight game, budding superstar James Wood led off the bottom of the first with a home run to put the Nationals ahead 1-0. This one came on a 3-2 pitch against Warren, who threw a 95 mph fastball down the middle and paid for it.
But like Ryan Weathers and Cam Schlittler in the first two games of the series, Warren kept the majors’ highest-scoring offense in check. He induced double plays in the first and third innings, and then after putting runners on the corners with no outs in the fourth, he struck out Dylan Crews and got Daylen Lile to line out to Rice at first base for a double play that extinguished the threat.
