Chad Green pitched 3 shutout innings, including an “immaculate inning” to end the game where he struck out the side on 9 pitches — carrying the Yankees to a 4-2 win over the Mets in the 2nd game of a double header on July 4th at The Stadium, a game that ended just as the Fireworks displays were ending at 9:30 pm.
Many Yankee fans weren’t paying attention — some preoccupied with July 4th family parties and festivities, and not even realizing there was a 2nd game — others who had shut the tv or radio or stream of the game off in disgust after the disastrous blown 1st game lead and horrific 10-5 loss.
The win put NY back over .500 at 42-41, 10 games back of Boston in 4th place. The Yanks are 5.5 behind the Wild Card.
1. Urshela 3-Run Homer Gives NY 3-0 Lead
Gio Urshela put the Yanks on top and got the eventual game winner with a 3-run short-porch homer off Mets starter Corey Oswalt, the 6’5 righty, in the 2nd inning.
Luke Voit led off the inning with a double, and Rougned Odor bunted him to 3rd — much to the applause of National TV ESPN announcer Alex Rodriguez.
Urshela then made the bunt sacrifice inconsequential with the homer.
Gio for 👌 pic.twitter.com/lXwTy7UgKk
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) July 4, 2021
2. Cortes Started — Pitched Well
Nestor Cortes Jr.took over Michael King‘s job in the starting rotation and pitched 3 scoreless innings, until yielding in the 4th after allowing a one out double to Dominic Smith.
Cortes left with a 3-0 lead, with 59 pitches thrown — 2 hits, 4 strikeouts. He was terrific.
3. O’Day Coughs Up Alonzo 2-Run Homer
Darren O’Day came in and coughed up a 2-run bomb to Pete Alonso to make it 3-2 Yankees — one of the runs charged to Cortes.
O’Day then walked 2 batters before getting the final 2 outs of the inning.
4. Yanks Get Insurance Run
The Yanks got an insurance run in the 5th when after walks by Mets reliever Aaron Loup to Brett Gardner and DJ LeMahieu, the Mets brought in Miguel Castro, who promptly wild pitched Gardner home after a groundout had moved the runners to 2nd and 3rd.
5. Green to the Rescue
Chad Green was just light’s out for the last 3 innings of the game — gaining the Yanks the win.
He pitched 3 innings, no hits, no walks, 6 strikeouts — including the Immaculate last inning when on 9 pitches he struck out Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil and Jonathan Villar on 9 pitches.
Chad was immaculate to shut it down. @chadgreen24 🔥 pic.twitter.com/1Ckm0Rqh0I
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) July 5, 2021
The Green performance magnified the fact that Boone didn’t leave him in for the save in the 1st game, instead pulling him after getting the final out of the 6th. Boone keeping him in for the 3 innings of the 2nd game seemed Boone making a point that he was saving Green in the 1st game for ‘length’ in the 2nd game.
The Boxscore
https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401343904
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