For weeks (or arguably months) without Aaron Judge and to a lesser extent Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton, the Yankees lineup has looked asleep.
On Wednesday, it was as if the bats had set repeated alarms, jolting awake in increments before several late-game outbursts that sure made the club look alive.
The Yankees dug holes and escaped them, scoring the final seven runs of a 10-5 victory over the Mariners in front of 41,714, three of whom rushed the field in the fifth inning only to be taken down (in one case, particularly violently) by Yankee Stadium security.
Against a strong Mariners staff and Bryce Miller, the Yankees exploded for 13 hits, including six doubles and a pair of home runs from Trent Grisham — who finished 3-for-5 with 10 total bases, four RBIs and a defensive lapse that was forgotten about — that helped seal it.
All after they were trailing 3-0 five batters into the game and consistently applied more pressure on their own offense.
“To break out like that — we haven’t done that in a while — against a team that’s good at limiting runs, good to see everyone contribute, especially when you fall behind like that in the first inning,” said manager Aaron Boone, whose team scored more than five runs in a game for just the fifth time in their past 48 games and scored double-digit runs for the first time since July 9. “We just kept kind of crawling our way back into it.”
The Yankees (68-52) won for the fourth time in five games, remained six games back of the Rays in the AL East and moved four games clear of the Red Sox, who have dropped five straight, for the top wild card.
The Yankees trailed immediately, were down 4-1 entering the bottom of the third and 5-3 entering the bottom of the fifth, before their bullpen entered and shut down the Mariners (five shutout innings from a shaky Fernando Cruz, Tim Hill, Paul Blackburn, Brent Headrick and Yerry De Los Santos) and their offense seized control.
“We never felt like we were out of it tonight,” said Ben Rice, who reached base three times and contributed to a takeover that began within four pitches in the fifth.
In the inning, Grisham — briefly a villain in The Bronx after he allowed a would-be out to drop in front of him — demolished a first-pitch, two-out home run to bring the Yankees within 5-4. Two pitches later, Rice doubled into the right field corner, and before he could catch his breath, he hustled home on a first-pitch Spencer Jones RBI double to tie the game.
The Yankees used more patience in a three-run seventh, when nine stepped to the plate, Grisham added his RBI double, Rice followed with an RBI single and Jazz Chisholm Jr. — mightily struggling and watching the Mariners intentionally walk Heliot Ramos ahead of him to get a bases-loaded, left-on-left matchup — worked a strong walk to bring home another run.
The game became a rout in the eighth, when Grisham clubbed his second homer, this to right-center, for his second multihomer game of the year.
“I feel good,” said a typically reserved Grisham, who is 8-for-17 with three homers and four doubles in his past four games.
Pausing a remarkable run of Yankees starting pitching — in their previous 13 games, Yankees starters owned a 1.62 ERA, allowed two runs or fewer 11 times — was Will Warren, who let up five runs in four-plus innings.
Five batters into the game, the Yankees were down 3-0 because Randy Arozarena turned a sweeper into a two-run homer and Julio Rodríguez redirected a four-seamer over the right field wall.
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In the third, Dominic Canzone demolished a changeup to right — the 397-foot bullet was no porch job — and the Mariners added another in the fifth, when Cruz could not strand a runner Warren left on base.
It didn’t matter. The Yankees lineup kept waking up.
“They scored runs,” Jones said. “We came right back.”
