Yankees Slip Past Rangers
NEW YORK — Recent ninth innings have seen wild momentum swings for the New York Yankees.
On Monday, the Yankees allowed four runs with virtually nobody in the ballpark after 2 a.m. following a 3 1/2-hour rain delay. Two games later, they used a pair of home run swings to rally from a sizable deficit.
Less than 24 hours later, the Yankees did not even have to swing to get a win. They just had to guess correctly.
Chase Headley did when he scored on a passed ball with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, giving New York a 2-1 victory over the Texas Rangers Thursday afternoon.
“It was huge,” Headley said. “To be honest, Monday might have been the toughest loss I dealt with in my career, go from a game you feel like you have in hand that you feel like you’re going to win. Then you have the rain delay and all the crazy things happen and you lose and Cole Hamels comes out and does what he did (Tuesday).
“We bounced back in a big way, a lot of resiliency. and hopefully can keep this momentum going forward.”
Things slowly developed for the Yankees in their fourth walk-off win of the season. Headley opened the inning with a walk against Tony Barnette (5-3), was sacrificed to second by Didi Gregorius.
The Yankees had second and third after Starlin Castro weakly grounded out to first but three pitches later, they had a .500 record (39-39) for the seventh time since May 22.
On a 1-1 pitch to Jacoby Ellsbury, Barnette’s pitch went under Robinson Chirinos’ glove and
under him. The ball reached the backstop and Headley slid in head first.
“You see the ball up in the zone, you don’t expect it to bounce,” Headley said. “I almost took a half step back before I saw it get through. Once it got by, you know there’s no going back. You just got to hope you’re able to make it.”
Headley’s dash and subsequent slide ensured the Yankees won’t face a double-digit deficit in the American League East through June for the first time since 2007. It also gave New York its first win on a passed ball since April 27, 2012 when Derek Jeter scored on passed ball by Detroit’s Alex Avila while Alex Rodriguez was batting against Bryan Villareal.
“It’s a good read,” New York manager Joe Girardi said. “It’s not an easy one when it goes between the catcher’s legs because you don’t always see it right away and then it goes through the umpire’s legs but he was heads up.”
It was the first time the Yankees had consecutive walk-off wins since July 3-4, against Tampa Bay on games decided by a home run and error on a sacrifice bunt. It marked the sixth straight win the Yankees have rallied from any deficit and ninth time in their last 11 victories.
Texas lost for the fourth time in its last 16 games and was unable to match a team record for wins in a month with 21. It was the Rangers’ major-league leading ninth walk-off loss and it was their first loss decided on a passed ball since June 16, 1986 against the Angels.
“Unacceptable,” said Barnette, who was the winning pitcher in the series opener.
Before Headley’s dramatic dash, there was little offense and plenty of strikeouts.
The teams combined on 25 strikeouts with Yankee pitching getting 16 of them.
Michael Pineda fanned 12 in six innings and Aroldis Chapman (2-0) stranded Adrian Beltre on first by getting three straight outs in the ninth.
Pineda allowed a leadoff home run to Shin-Soo Choo four pitches in the game and little else, striking out six from the end of the first until the second out of the third.
A.J. Griffin struck out eight and carried a 1-0 lead until Gregorius homered with one out in the fifth. Like Pineda, he allowed one run and two hits but went five innings.
