High Drama Win. Severino & the Pen Shut Out Mariners. NY 1 Seattle 0

June 25, 2023 paperbacklou 2023 0

Ron Marinaccio allowed consecutive singles to leadoff the 9th inning — but then struck out the next 2 batters and got a pop out for the ball game and a 1-0 Yankee win.

In the 8th, Wandy Peralta had allowed consecutive singles to leadoff the inning — but then struck out a batter and Clay Holmes came in to get the next 2 outs.

High drama on a Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium which had begun with Luis Severino pitching 6 strong innings of shutout ball, and Tommy Kahnle pitching a 1-2-3 inning in the 7th — all to make a lone solo homerun by Billy McKinney in the 4th stand up for the win.

Jon Gray and the Texas bullpen stifled Yankee batters all afternoon as well in this era of historically low batting averages.

“That’s the thing about Ron,” said manager Aaron Boone afterwards about Marinaccio. “Whatever’s going on he’s fearless.”

NY improves to 42-35, 9.5 behind Tampa, 5 behind Baltimore, and .5 ahead of Toronto. Texas falls to 47-29, in 1st in their division.

1. Severino Strong

Luis Severino missed the first two months of the season with a strained lat muscle. He looked pretty good in his first 2 starts of the season starting in late May, but then got pummeled in 4 straight starts, including the last one, where his fastball seemed better and crisper, but his breaking pitches let him down.

In this start, his breaking pitches looked better.

“He had good life again on the fastball, and his secondary was better,” said Boone afterwards. “That’s what came along today. Still wasn’t perfect by any means. But he had a really good presence. Now it’s about getting to that next level of command and hopefully he can really take off. But overall really good performance by Sevy.”

Severino got in trouble in the top of the 1st — walking Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis Garcia after 2 were out. Josh Jung ripped a single to right, but Jake Bauers threw a strike to home plate to nail Lowe for the final out of the inning, preventing the run from scoring. It ended up being a HUGE play in the 1-0 Yankee win.

Severino rolled into the 6th inning with a shutout and 1-0 lead, and in the 6th got a strikeout, single, strikeout on 3-2 pitch, and a fly to end it. He left at 95 pitches and ended up getting the win to go 1-2 5.25 on the year.

2. Gray Good

The Yanks were up against Jon Gray, who the Yankees drafted in the 10th round of the 2011 June draft — but he refused their offer and stayed in college. He had been drafted by Kansas City the year before in the 13th round, but refused their offer and went to college. Finally Gray was drafted in the 1st round, #3 overall by the Colorado Rockies in 2013.

Gray had some fine seasons as a Colorado starter from 2015 thru 2021 before joining Texas last year. This year has been his best yet, ERA wise — he came into the game 6-2 2.96 and leaves 6-3 2.89.

3. McKinney BLAST

Gray got into trouble in the bottom of the 3rd, walking Anthony Volpe and Gleyber Torres and then allowing an infield single to Harrison Bader with 2 outs. But with bases loaded, 2 outs, Anthony Rizzo fouled a pitch off the inside of his knee, then got back in the batter’s box and struck out.

In the 4th Billy McKinney got to Gray by Ripping a 96-MPH four-seam fastball on a 3-2 pitch into the bleachers in right.

4. Kahnle 1-2-3

Tommy Kahnle came in and pitched an easy 1-2-3 inning in the 7th — fly out, foul out, ground out. The return of Tommy Tight Pants makes the Yankee bullpen so much stronger.

5. Wandy’s Wand Wasn’t Working

The pressure started to wratched in the late innings — the Yankees having lost 2 in a row and needing this win, and holding the 1-0 lead.

Wandy Peralta allowed consecutive singles to start the 8th and then went 2-0 on Nathaniel Lowe. His Magic Wand clearly was broken.

Like “My Favorite Martin” when his antennas were broken — we suggested on Twitter that he winkle his nose like Samantha Stevens on Bewitched used to do. Peralta came back with 2 straight strikes and went 3-2 on Lowe before we could swear we saw him wiggle his nose then strike out Lowe looking on a 90-MPH changup that just hit the bottom of the zone. A HUGE strikeout.

Clay Holmes then came in and got Adolis Garcia to groundout to 3rd (the Yankees attempting but not getting the DP), and struck out Jung on a 1-2 Sweepter. HUGE.

6. Marinaccio High Drama

And then came the 9th and more high drama. Ron Marinaccio allowed consecutive singles to start the inning and here we go again.

Fans on Yankee Twitter were cursing to get him out of there. But Marinaccio reared back and struck out Ezequiel Duran, struck out Leody Taveras, and got Marcus Semien to pop up to 2nd for the old ballgame.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401472173

 

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*