A pitchers’ duel between the pitcher the Yankees kept (Clarke Schmidt) and the one the Padres insisted upon (the aptly named Michael King) played to a stalemate.
A tie game after six innings, it was the San Diego bullpen that resigned.
The Yankees exploded for a 10-run seventh inning in which rocket after rocket turned a good game into an unexpected demolition in a 12-3 Yankees win in front of 38,090 in The Bronx on a foggy Tuesday.
The Yankees (20-16) halted a three-game skid and will look to take the series behind Max Fried on Wednesday, when they will hope to take some of the momentum from their biggest inning of the season.
Tim Hill and Fernando Cruz combined to allow one run in the top of the seventh before the Yankees onslaught began. Once King exited, the Yankees sent 13 batters to the plate in a seven-hit, three-walk, one-grand-slam bottom of the seventh that never seemed to end.
Against Adrian Morejon and former Yankee Wandy Peralta, the Yankees teed off:
- A Jasson Domínguez double, and singles from Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells scored the game-tying run.
- Oswaldo Cabrera’s attempted bunt resulted in a foul out, but pinch hitter Paul Goldschmidt walked to load the bases, and Trent Grisham walked for the go-ahead run.
- Ben Rice’s two-run double provided distance. As did an intentional walk to Aaron Judge and an RBI single by Cody Bellinger.
- After a Domínguez fly out, Volpe drove in one with an infield single that loaded the bases for …
- a pulled grand slam from Wells, the first slam of his career and his second hit of the inning.
The onslaught took attention away from King — a piece San Diego insisted upon in the Juan Soto trade — who was solid through six innings of two-run, three-hit pitching.
Schmidt — who the Yankees managed to keep in a swap in which four arms went to San Diego — matched him through six perhaps less dominant but still effective innings in which he also let up two runs.
Both were excellent until the fourth.
The Padres first grabbed the lead, scoring two through some hard contact (a Manny Machado single into left), some soft contact (a shift-enabled chopped single through the left side by Jackson Merrill) and some good fortune (Schmidt balked with the bases loaded before a Jason Heyward sacrifice fly provided a second run).
The Yankees responded in the bottom of the inning when Aaron Judge drilled his 12th homer of the season, and they manufactured a run.
Bellinger walked and Domínguez singled, and Bellinger’s aggressiveness prompted a wayward throw to third from Fernando Tatis Jr., the throw bouncing out of play as Bellinger scored.
