Michael King to the Rescue. Volpe, IKF Lead Attack. Yankees 6 St. Louis 2 in Game 2

July 2, 2023 paperbacklou 2023 0

Michael King has been inconsistent this season — awesome early but off his game of late. So it was doubly fantastic to see King enter this game with bases loaded, 2 outs in the 3rd — NY up 3-2 — and get the final big out of the inning, then pitch 3 more shutout innings to be the hero of the game.

King got the Yankees to the 7th, nursing that 3-2 lead — and handed off to Wandy Peralta for the 7th, Tommy Kahnle for the 8th, and Clay Holmes for the 9th. The Yankees exploded for 3 insurance runs in the top of the 9th — with small ball and a big 2-RBI single by Gleyber Torres — to make Holmes’ job easy.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa got 3 hits and Anthony Volpe continued his torrid hitting with 2 hits — the two Yanks were at the heart of NY offensive rallies in the 3rd and the 9th. A fun night for Yankee fans after taking an 11-4 drubbing in game 1 of the doubleheader.

On a Saturday night in St. Louis.

“Obviously a great job by our bullpen, of everyone just going in and doing their part,” said manager Aaron Boone afterwards. “And King giving us some big length there and being that efficient to allow it was great.”

NY goes to 46-37, and pulls back to 9.5 behind Tampa, 3 behind Baltimore, and 1.5 games ahead of Toronto. St. Louis drops to 34-48 — an unexpectedly rough year for them.

1. Bader Thanked; Puts Yanks on Top

After a LONG afternoon of multi-hour rain delays in the 1st game of the doubleheader, the Yankees jumped out against Matthew Liberatore in the top of the 1st of the 2nd game, with consecutive 1-out singles by Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo to put 1st and 3rd.

Up stepped Harrison Bader — and the St. Louis fans gave him a rousing standing ovation.

Bader then hit a sac fly to left to put NY on top 1-0.

2. Hamilton the “Opener”

It was a bullpen game for the Yankees — Ian Hamilton “opened” and immediately gave up a leadoff homer to Lars Nootbaar for a 1-1 tie.

Hamilton allowed 2 more singles in the inning but got the rest of the side out.

3. Kiner-Falefa & Volpe Put Yanks Up 3-1

Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Anthony Volpe have been RED HOT — and they continued their red hotness in the top of the 2nd — Kiner-Falefa leading off with a single, and Anthony Volpe hitting a blast to opposite field right that hit off the top of the wall for a triple and 2-1 Yankee lead.

DJ LeMahieu did his job with a 1-out sac fly to score Volpe and NY was up 3-1.

4. King to the Rescue

Ron Marinaccio followed Ian Hamilton, and pitched a shutout 2nd.

But Marinaccio got into trouble in the 3rd.

Single, fly out, foul out, walk put 2 on for Jordan Walker who doubled to left for a run and 3-2 game.

Marinaccio then walked Alec Burleson (no relation to Rick Burleson) to load the bases and was yanked for Michael King.

King Gets Out of It

Bases loaded, 2 outs — Yanks clinging to a 3-2 lead — and King got Paul DeJong to groundout to end the inning. PHEW.

King then pitched a 1-2-3 shutout 4th, got into a little trouble in the 5th (a leadoff single and 1 out walk put 2 on) but got out of it (fly out, ground out to end the threat), and a 1-2-3 inning in the 6th.

King’s line: 3.1 innings, 1 hit, 1 walk, 2 K’s, shutout ball. He kept the score 3-2 and got the win to go 2-4 2.84.

Once upon a time Michael King was a starting pitcher who won a lot of games in the Yankee minor league system — his best season an 11-5 1.79 in 2018 at multiple minor league levels. He can still pitch multiple innings.

5. Wandy & Kanhle Great

Wandy Peralta pitched the 7th in the 3-2 game. He got lefty-swinging Lars Nootbaar to fly out, but allowed a 1-out walk to righty-swinging Paul Goldschmidt.

Wandy then struck out the last two batters of the inning — lefty-swinging Nolan Gorman and righty-swinging Wilson Contreras — the 4th and 5th batters in the Cardinals’ lineup. HUGE.

Tommy Kahnle pitched the 8th — still a 3-2 game. He allowed a 1-out walk, but struck out Paul DeJong and got Dylan Carlson to ground out to 2nd on a nifty play by Anthony Volpe, taking it himself and just getting the runner.

6. Kiner-Falefa & Volpe Do It Again in 9th

To the 9th inning — Yankees still CLINGING to the 3-2 lead since the 3rd inning and in need of an INSURANCE run(s). They got them. Courtesy Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Anthony Volpe. Again.

Kiner-Falefa worked a 1-out walk against Cardinals reliever Chris Stratton. Anthony Volpe ripped a single to right and it was 1st and 3rd, 1 out.

Jose Trevino then bunted — scoring Kiner-Falefa and moving Volpe to 2nd — Trevino safe at 1st as the play was made to home. The Cardinals challenged the play at home but lost the challenge as Kiner-Falefa just beat the throw. Brilliant small-ball baseball and NY was up 4-2.

DJ LeMahieu then walked and Gleyber Torres ripped a 2-RBI single to left for a 6-2 Yankee lead.

7. Holmes the 9th

Clay Holmes walked the 1st batter of the 9th, but then got a 5-4-3 double play and struck out Paul Goldschmidt for the old ballgame.

Etcetera

  • Anthony Volpe is now slashing 10-29-.220 (.295 OBP). He got 2 hits on both games of the doubleheader.
  • Isiah Kiner-Falefa is now slashing 5-22-.260 (.306). He went 3-3 with a walk in the 2nd game after going 1-4 in the 1st game.

They have both been Red Hot — both of their batting averages were in the mid 100’s 2 to 3 weeks ago.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401564629

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*