The Yankees finished their regular season with an exclamation point, taking down the Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 on Sunday evening to avoid being swept while picking up their AL-best 94th victory of the season.
Clinching the No. 1 seed in the American League, the Eastern Division champions will take on the winner of the Baltimore Orioles and Kansas City Royals’ Wild Card series.
“So many times, it’s not always the fancy, the sexy, the big hits all the time,” Yankees
manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s the grinding out at-bats, working the walk, setting the table. Good way to go out. Now we will enjoy the day off tomorrow and get ready to get after it.”
On the mound for the Yankees was Clarke Schmidt, while Bailey Falter got the start for the
Pirates. In the first two games of the series, the Pirates were able to get in front early, and their bullpen was able to bend, not break, to help the Bucs win. However, that wasn’t the case in the series finale.
In the bottom of the first, Gleyber Torres led off the inning with a double, followed up
immediately by a Trent Grisham two-run home run to give the Yankees an early two-run
advantage. However, the Pirates didn’t wait long to tie and take the lead from the Yankees.
The top of the third inning began with three of the first four Pirates batters Schmidt faced to reach base, leaving the bases loaded with only one out. The next batter, Joshua Palacios, slapped a double into right field, scoring both Nick Gonzalez and Oneil Cruz to tie the game at two.
One batter later, Jared Triolo sent a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Joey Bart, and giving
the Pirates a 3-2 lead. The score wouldn’t hold for long, as in the bottom half of the inning, the Yankees scored two. The first was an RBI single by Grisham that scored Jose Trevino, and the second was a Giancarlo Stanton double play that scored Torres. Falter’s day ended following that third inning. Falter pitched three innings and allowed four runs on four hits. Grisham ended the day with a team-high 3 RBI.
“He’s been productive, good shot in the arm right out of the chute. It was nice to have a
real two hole hitter in there today.” Boone joked. “He had a couple strikeouts where I think he
worked really tough at bats, but he can really impact the baseball and he had a really good day
today.”
To begin the bottom of the fifth inning, Schmidt allowed the first two batters to reach on
walks, and was subsequently removed from the game. Schmidt finished his final start of the year by tossing four innings, striking out five, walking four, and allowing four runs on three hits. Despite injuries, Schmidt finished the year with a very impressive 2.85 ERA in 16 starts.
Relieving Schmidt was Mark Leiter Jr., who allowed Bart, the first batter he faced, to double on a line drive to left, which scored Bryan Reynolds, tying the game at four. A score that would hold until the bottom of the eighth, when Alex Verdugo finally broke the tie with a bases-loaded two-out single, which scored Austin Wells and Jasson Dominguez, giving the Yankees a 6-4 lead.
