And then Came the Rain. Yankees 3 Boston 1

July 18, 2021 paperbacklou 2021 0

The Yankees were getting no-hit in the 5th by Nathan Eovaldi; Gerrit Cole had allowed only 1 run but the Yanks were losing 1-0. The Yankees, and Yankee season seemed absolutely dead.

Then — with 2 outs in the bottom of the 5th — newly acquired outfielder Greg Allen lined a double to right center, and DJ LeMahieu singled him home as Yankee Stadium ERUPTED in glee — the noise almost as amazing as the hits themselves — that so many people were still pent-up glued to the game.

And then —  like lightning — with thunderstorm rain pouring down at The Stadium, Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres hit back-to-back homers in the 6th to give NY a 3-1 lead. And then the torrential rains came. And came and came. With a spectacular upper atmosphere light show. The umps called the game after 6 innings and the Yanks had a win!

NY at 47-44 pulls to within 8 games of Boston making Sunday’s game huge.

1. Cole Terrific Again

Gerrit Cole laid down the foundation for the Yankee win with another brilliant performance — coming off his 129-pitch complete-game shutout masterpiece against Houston last Saturday, just before the All Star break.

For the first time this year he was pitching to Gary Sanchez — with his personal catcher Kyle Higashioka out with COVID protocol.

Cole allowed a run in the 2nd on a 1-out single by centerfielder Jarren Duran, who moved to 2nd on a groundout and scored on a 2-out single by Christian Arroyo to make it 1-0 Boston.

Cole then breezed thru the 3rd thru 5th innings but ran into trouble in the 6th — after striking out the first two batters of the inning, he walked Devers, allowed an infield hit to rightfielder Hunter Renfroe and walked Duran to load the bases — before striking out Christian Vasquez to end the inning 1-1. Phew.

Cole ended with 6 innings, 5 hits, 1 run, 11 strikeouts, 2 walks. He gets the win to go 10-4 2.63.

Guess he doesn’t need sticky stuff to strike out 11 batters and pitch great after all.

2. Devastating Injury for Locastro

Tim Locastro made a terrific catch in foul territory of a ball hit by Verdugo, banging his knee against the wall while doing so. He had to be removed from the game, replaced by Tyler Wade. It was later revealed after the game that Locastro had torn his ACL, ending his season.

3. The Game-Tying Rally

Did Greg Allen save the Yankee season with his double that ignited the game-tying rally? We will see.

But the raucous noise that the rain-soaked denizen of Yankee Stadium made when DJ LeMahieu tied the game by bringing home Allen with a single was impressive.

4. Lots of Delays

The game was marked by lots of delays — there was a 52-minute delay to start the game due to rain. There were lots of stops to the action due to challenge calls.

Fan Throws Ball Back Onto Field — Hits Refrow

And then in between innings in the 6th, Alex Verdugo threw a ball into the stands to a young Red Sox fan (according to Verdugo), but a Yankees fan intercepted it and threw it back onto the field and hit Verdugo in the back.

This caused Massive commotion, as Verdugo started yelling at the fans and had to be restrained. Red Sox manager Alex Cora (who cheated in Houston) briefly pulled his players off the field.

Many on Yankee Twitter condemned the fan as did all the media. However, eyewitnesses at the Stadium say it was an accident (see below).

Finally after much discussion, Alex Cora (who cheated in Houston) sent his players back on the field.

“This is just a game,” Cora (who cheated in Houston) said after the game. “It’s a game. It’s not life and death and it’s not this drama, and the fact that people come to the ballpark and they decided to throw a baseball (at) one of the players, I was in shock that that happened.”

An Accident

According to Pinstripe Poverty Emy, “Was at the game last night and was directly behind the guy who hit Verdugo with the ball. Can say with absolute certainty it was 150% an accident. I get why Cora pulled everyone off the field but it really just made the fans look like scum bags and it truly wasn’t intentional.

The ball was thrown up to the fans by Verdugo and the dude caught it. Everyone around him started SCREAMING at him to throw it back for some reason. I mean fully harassing him. He finally just gave in and lobbed it, but Verdugo had already turned around to start the inning.”

5. Lightning Strike Lead

And then like lightning in the 6th, facing the very tough Hirokazu Sawamura, Gary Sanchez and Gleyber Torres hit the back-to-back homers to give the Yanks a 3-1 lead.

Etcetera

Aaron Judge, Gio Urshela, and Kyle Higashioka remain out on the COVID injury list.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401228430

 

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