Nothing is stopping the Yankees from winning their share of games anymore.
Not this week’s COVID-19 outbreak with everyone vaccinated.
Not Friday’s jarring pre-game news that center fielder Aaron Hicks may be facing season-ending wrist surgery and designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton is nursing yet another injury.
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The Yankees overcame health issues this week by beginning a three-series roadtrip with a rare series win over the Tampa Bay Rays and they overcame them again Friday night by rallying for a 5-4 win over the Baltimore Orioles.
Fittingly, the hero was one of their walking wounded.
Third baseman Gio Urshela, sidelined last weekend due to a sore left knee, was being rested for the Yanks’ series opener at Oriole Park until manager Aaron Boone summoned him off the bench with the game on the line. With Baltimore leading 4-2, the tying runs on base and one out in the Yankees seventh, Urshela pinch-hit for Tyler Wade, then greeted Orioles reliever Travis Lakins with a great at-bat that was capped with a three-run homer.
Urshela fouled off four 2-2 pitches in a row before lacing a hanging slider into the fourth row of the right-center-field seats for a 5-4 Orioles lead.
“He hadn’t been in the game, hadn’t been in the flow of seeing pitchers, but a guy like Gio is always locked in and ready to roll and he was able to barrel one up and give us the lead” said right fielder Aaron Judge, who accounted for the Yankees’ first two runs with solo homers. “That was the swing of the night.”
From there, Yankees relievers Chad Green, Wandy Peralta and Jonathan Loaisiga protected the lead to make it 15 wins in 21 games. Green pitched a scoreless seventh, Peralta worked a 1-2-3 eighth and then allowed a leadoff hit in the ninth to D.J. Stewart, then Loaisiga got the final three outs (the first two on a double play) for his second save with closer Aroldis Chapman being rested.
“We’re going through some tough times, but we’re going to continue to show up and we’ll always get through it,” Judge said.
NOTABLE
— Yankees starter Corey Kluber (3-2) picked up the win with a four-run, six-inning outing.
— Judge hit a two-out, nobody-on homer in the first inning, then went deep again to start the fourth. This was Judge’s third two-homer game of the season and the 13th of his career. He’s never had a three-homer game.
— Clint Frazier cost Brett Gardner a hit with poor baserunning judgement in the fourth inning. With one on and one out, Gardner’s blooper to left fell in when Austin Hays failed to make a diving catch, but Frazier thought that ball was caught, jogged back to first and promptly was forced out at second. “He thought he caught it,” manager Aaron Boone said. “If you think he caught it, you’ve got to go back to the base. He just didn’t see it properly.”
— Urshela’s nine-pitch at-bat was the longest by a Yankees pinch-hitter that resulted in a home run since Wade Boggs’ 11-pitch, pinch-homer off Mariners reliever Bob Wells in Seattle on May 31, 1995.
— Luke Voit was 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, leaving him hitless in 10 at-bats over three games since his season debut Wednesday in Tampa Bay.
— Stanton was scratched about an hour before first pitch due to left quad tightness. “Day to day,” Boone said. “He could be down a couple days, but I’m hoping it’s not more than that.”
— Hicks could be face season-ending surgery due to a tear on the sheath that produces his left wrist tendon. The Yankees will find out in the next week — or maybe by this weekend — if taking anti-inflammatory medicine will cure his issue.
— Boone said Chapman was unavailable because the plan was to give him a second day in a row off after four outings in five days.
LOOKING AHEAD
Saturday: Yankees at Orioles, 7:05 p.m., YES. RHP Domingo German (2-2, 4.02) vs. RHP Jorge Lopez (1-3, 5.63).
Sunday: Yankees at Orioles, 1:05 p.m., YES. LHP Jordan Montgomery (2-1, 3.96) vs. LHP John Means (4-0, 1.21).
Monday: Yankees at Texas Rangers, 8:05 p.m., YES. RHP Gerrit Cole (5-1, 1.37) vs. TBA.
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