This one looked pretty bad early on. Like, really bad. Will the score be so out of hand that Dellin Betances and/or Andrew Brackman actually get to pitch bad. And yet, a few innings later, there was Mariano Rivera on the mound, nailing down the 601st save of his career. Hooray for come from behind wins…
- You typically can’t have a comeback win without awful pitching, so Bartolo Colon jumped on the grenade Saturday afternoon. The big fella lasted just four innings, exiting the game after allowing six runs on seven hits and a walk. He threw only 67 pitches, and his Game Score of 25 was the 11th worst by a Yankees pitcher this season. Colon now has a 7.98 ERA in 23.2 IP against Toronto this season, but a 3.06 ERA in 132.1 IP against everyone else. Good thing the Jays aren’t going to the postseason, eh?
- The Yankees were down four-zip heading into the fourth, and that’s when they started to chip away. Curtis Granderson scored the team’s first run when Adam Loewen dropped a fly ball in lefty, and the inning would have been bigger if it wasn’t for Robinson Cano’s stupid baserunning. With men on second and third with one out, Nick Swisher clubbed a deep fly ball that Colby Rasmus managed to run down for the second out. Either Cano wasn’t paying attention or he forgot how many outs there were or something else, but he kept running and passed Mark Teixeira (the lead baserunner) on the bases to end the inning. It’s the second time on the road trip that Robbie make a huge baserunning blunder, and Tex called him out on it after the game.
- After Colon gave two runs back in the bottom of the inning, the Yankees went to work. Teixeira (who had a pair of hits back up the middle, not his usually pull happy stuff) drove in Grandy, then two batters later Alex Rodriguez ripped a line drive three-run homer over the left field wall to make it 6-5. Alex singled in his first at-bat, and both hits came on inside fastballs. Pretty good sign following the thumb injury. Granderson completed the comeback in the seventh, when he whacked a two-run homer to center on the 12th pitch of a monster at-bat. Curtis was a triple shy of the cycle, and it all started with a first inning bunt single. As they say, sometimes a little bunt hit can help end a slump.
- All the runs were great, but they wouldn’t have meant anything if it wasn’t for five stellar innings from the bullpen. Scott Proctor took over in the fifth and immediately walked leadoff man Jose Bautista, but that was it. Adam Lind grounded into a double play as the next batter, and the bullpen retired the final 14 batters they faced. Aaron Laffey threw the sixth, Hector Noesi the seventh, Rafael Soriano the eighth (struck out the side for the second straight day), and of course Mo handled the ninth. As you already know, he tied Trevor Hoffman for the most career saves in baseball history. It doesn’t get any better than that, just a stellar job by the relief corps. All five of ’em.
- The Rays beat the Red Sox, so the lead in the division increased to 4.5 games while wildcard lead remained at 7.5. The magic number to clinch a playoff spot is just five. Here’s the box score, here’s the advanced stats, and here’s the standings.
The rubber game of this series will be played Sunday afternoon, when Freddy Garcia starts against Brandon Morrow at 1:07pm ET. It was supposed to be Dustin McGowan for Toronto, but he had to start Friday after Brett Cecil cut his finger cleaning a blender.
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