Yankees' comeback falls short, as they drop game three to Seattle in extras 6-5

The Yankees had a chance to win their first series in well over a month when they took the field Saturday night in Seattle. Unfortunately, starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka made the task extremely challenging when he allowed the Mariners to hang a crooked four on the scoreboard in the third inning. The Yankees scratched and clawed their way back into the game to tie it back up in both the eighth and ninth inning. The team made a valiant effort to continue fighting down to their last out, but it would not be enough to earn a win.

Photo Credit: Ted S. Warren/AP

The Yankees initially jumped out to a 1-0 lead when Gary Sanchez lead off the second inning with a booming double and was later able to score when Todd Frazier hit into a double play. Masahiro Tanaka looked sharp in five of his six innings of work. However, the one inning which he didn’t look sharp was a complete disaster. Once again, the long ball was Tanaka’s worst enemy. He surrendered two solo blasts to the streaky Mike Zunino and former Yankee Ben Gamel. Tanaka has now allowed multiple home runs for the eighth time in only twenty starts this season. After the solo homers, Tanaka’s inability to stop the bleeding would prove costly as he allowed two more runs to come across the plate with two outs in a brutal 39 pitch inning.

Down 4-1, the Yankees found life in the form of Garrett Cooper’s towering fifth inning triple off the wall in dead center field. Mariners OF Jarrod Dyson had to leave the game following the triple after his violent collision with the wall. Cooper would then score on a Ronald Torreyes sac fly. In the top of the sixth, Aaron Judge punished Mariners manager Scott Servais by demolishing an opposite field bomb off of reliever Steve Cishek who had just entered the game to face Judge. Judge’s homer was his 32nd of the year, as he has now homered in his last two games of this series.

With the score 4-3 heading into the eighth inning, the Yankees ran into a bit of bad luck. After Brett Gardner led off with an infield single, Clint Frazier sent a frozen rope off the very top of the left field wall. The ball was only inches from putting the Yankees up 5-4 and Frazier had to settle for a double. Instead, the lineup could only scratch across one run on a Matt Holliday sac fly that scored Gardner and tied the game for the time being.

Photo Credit: Lindsey Wasson/Getty Images

In the bottom of the eighth, former Yankee Robinson Cano flashed that beautiful left handed swing of his as he smacked a well thrown fastball by David Robertson over the left field wall to put the Mariners up 5-4. In the top of the ninth, manager Joe Girardi pushed all the right buttons in one of the most bizarre sequences of this Yankees season. Ronald Torreyes came up to bat with two outs and Didi Gregorius on first base. Girardi shockingly decided to send Jacoby Ellsbury out to first base to replace Didi as the tying run rather than sending him up to hit for Torreyes. It played out to absolute perfection as Ellsbury swiped 2nd base and then came around to score on Torreyes’ game tying RBI single.

After Tommy Kahnle held the Mariners scoreless in the ninth to force extra innings, Adam Warren came on for the Yanks in the 10th and failed to record a single out. Ben Gamel continued his stellar night, leading off the inning with a booming double. Warren would then intentionally walk Cano, bringing up the AL RBI leader Nelson Cruz. Cruz singled to left, as Gamel came around to score from second on the walk off hit.

This was a gut wrenching loss for the Yankees because they had a great opportunity to finally win a series outright for the first time since June 9-11 vs. Baltimore. The Red Sox and Rays both lost Saturday meaning that the Yankees also lost an opportunity to gain a full game on each of them in a tight AL East race.

Tomorrow, the Yankees will look once again to finally earn a series victory in the final game of this road trip at 4:10 ET. Caleb Smith will be on the mound for the Yankees in what will be his first career start. He’ll face off against veteran righty Yovani Gallardo (4-7, 5.59 ERA), who will try and split the series with the Yanks and stay in Wild Card contention.

Winning Pitcher: Tony Zych (4-2, 2.03 ERA) 1.0 IP, 0 R, 0 ER, 2 K

Losing Pitcher: Adam Warren (2-2, 1.99 ERA) 0.0+ IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 0 K

Notables:

Clint Frazier: 2-5, 2B

Aaron Judge: 1-4, HR (32), RBI (73), BB

Ronald Torreyes: 1-3, 2 RBI (23)

Article by: Kyle Finnerty

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