Dramatic wins have seemed to have become commonplace for the Yankees these days and Wednesday night was no different.
It was a wild pitch that helped drive in the winning run on Wednesday night in a 7-6 win over the Cincinnati Reds in extra innings. The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Yankees and prevented a tough night in the Bronx from becoming back-to-back losses against the last place team in the National League Central.
The Reds have given the Bombers a surprisingly hard time through the first two games of the series, rallying to defeat the Yankees on Tuesday night and forcing New York to come back two different times on Wednesday night.
It was reliever Michael King that helped the Bombers get a chance to win the game in the bottom of the 10th. He struck out Matt Reynolds and forced Kyle Farmer to ground into an inning double play in the top half of the 10th inning.
That set up the wild finish in the 10th that started with Aaron Judge striking out and Anthony Rizzo being intentionally walked. Reds’ reliever Alexis Diaz threw a wild pitch to allow DJ LeMahieu, who started extras on second, and Rizzo to advance a base.
Another wild pitch allowed LeMahieu to reach home from third and finish off the game for New York and give him as good of a 34th birthday present as he could ask for.
The offensive outburst by New York made up for a rough start for Luis Severino, who left the game with right shoulder tightness. He was examined by the team’s doctor and will undergo an MRI on Thursday.
Severino pitched just two innings before he came out, surrendering all four runs in the first two innings and gave up four hits. The righty also struck out one batter.
The Reds erased a Yankee lead in the fifth with a lead-off single and walk that kicked off the inning. Joey Votto hit a ground-rule double to left field to drive home the tying run and Tyler Stephenson’s sacrifice fly gave Cincinnati a 6-5 lead.
Giancarlo Stanton tied the game up in the bottom of the eighth when he hit a solo shot to right field in the first at-bat of the inning.
The Yankees had to erase a 4-o deficit in the third inning when they scored five runs — four of which came with two outs — to jump to a 5-4 lead.
The fireworks started when Joey Gallo walked to start the inning and DJ LeMahieu singled to move him over to third. A fielder’s choice two batters later allowed the Yankees to cut the Reds’ lead to 4-1 and a two-out single by Gleyber Torres kept things going and pulled the Bombers within two.
After a seven-pitch at-bat, Josh Donaldson walked to load the bases and set up Isiah Kiner-Falefa for a game-changing double. Kiner-Falefa got a hold of a 3-1 fastball from Mike Minor and drove it to center field to clear the bases and give New York their first lead of the night.
IKF HAS CLEARED THE BASES AND THE YANKEES LEAD!
(via @TalkinYanks)pic.twitter.com/jKzBRnR4ir
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) July 14, 2022
The Reds took the game’s first lad in the top of the first after Severino walked the game’s first batter and Brandon Drury singled to reach base. Tommy Pham grounded out to the pitcher, which allowed the base runners to move into scoring position.
That set up a lineout by Joey Votto that drove in Jonathan India for the game’s opening run. Severino eventually worked his way out of the inning without another runner crossing the plate.
Things only got worse in the second inning for the Yankees starter when the Reds hit back-to-back-to-back home runs to take a 4-0 lead.
It started with Kyle Farmer sending a 1-2 pitch 431 feet into left-center field to put Cincinnati up by two. Mike Moustakas followed it up by taking an 86 mph changeup 390 feet for the Reds’ second home run of the inning and Stuart Fairchild completed the home run hat trick by sending the ball just over the left field fence on the first pitch of the at-bat.
Kyle Farmer, Mike Moustakas, and Stuart Fairchild go B2B2B against Luis Severino!#MLB #ATOBTTR pic.twitter.com/kUMqs8K5rs
— SportsGridTV (@SportsGridTV) July 13, 2022
The Yankees and Reds meet for the final game of the series on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
