Didi Gregorius passes Derek Jeter as the Yankees offense erupts for 11 runs to complete the sweep of the Twins

Looking to create an even larger cushion on the American Wild Card race, the Yankees came into Thursday afternoon’s game with their best pitcher on the mound in Luis Severino and were up against a pitcher that has struggled mightily as a Twin, Bartolo Colon. While their ace did not have his best stuff, the Yankees scored 11 runs over the course of the third, fourth, and fifth inning and never looked back. Some unheralded Yankee relievers stifled the Twins offense for the remainder of the game and secured the sweep. This 11-3 victory puts the Bombers up seven games for home-field advantage in the Wild Card game and moved them to 2.5 games behind Boston at the time of this publication.

Photo Credit: Bill Kostroun | AP

Luis Severino did not have his best stuff early in this game. In the third inning, he allowed an RBI single to Joe Mauer and a two-run single to Jorge Polanco, which put the Twins up early 3-0. After this rough inning, Joe Girardi opted to go to the bullpen, despite their young ace’s pitch count resting at only 71 pitches.

This was in due part to the fact that the floodgates were just waiting to be opened against Colon, who is having one of his worst season in his illustrious career. The Yankees answered back with three runs of their own in the bottom of the third courtesy of a Greg Bird double, Aaron Judge’s 45th home run of the season, and immediately after, Gary Sanchez’s 32nd home run of the season.

Photo Credit: Bill Kostroun | AP

The offense kept on rolling in the fourth inning. Greg Bird doubled for the second time in two innings to give the Yankees a 4-3, which knocked Colon out of the game with two runners on base. They did not last long as Brett Gardner singled in a run, and Gary Sanchez knocked in his second run of the game with a single. Didi Gregorius got in on the fun and also passed an all-time Yankee great in the record books. He hit a three-run blast to right field to give him 25 on the season, which passed Derek Jeter for the most home runs by a Yankee shortstop in a single season.

The Yankees final two runs came courtesy of an Aaron Judge sacrifice fly and a Nik Turley wild pitch, which allowed Matt Holliday to score from third base.

Following Severino’s short outing, Chasen Shreve came on to pitch, and he had arguably his best outing of the year. In three innings of work, he allowed zero hits, walked only one, and struck out three hitters. This outing was huge for Shreve as he is on the outskirts in terms of making the postseason roster or not. Ben Heller followed Shreve with a scoreless outing and Domingo Germán was excellent in two hitless innings to finish off the Twins.

The Yankees have their last off day of the season tomorrow and will then travel to Toronto for their last away series of the 2017 regular season.

Winning Pitcher: Chasen Shreve (4-1, 3.71 ERA) 3 IP, 0 H, 1 BB, 3 K

Losing Pitcher: Bartolo Colon (6-14, 6.63 ERA) 3.1 IP, 7 H, 6 R, 6 ER, 1 BB, 3 K, 2 HR

Notables:

Didi Gregorius 1-4, 1 HR(25), 3 RBI

Jacoby Ellsbury 3-4, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 BB

Greg Bird 3-4, 2 2B

Aaron Judge 1-3, 1 HR(45), 3 RBI, 1 BB

Gary Sanchez 2-4, 1 HR(32), 2 RBI

Brett Gardner 2-3, 1 RBI

Luis Severino 3 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 3 K

Article by: Ryan Thoms

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