You can always count on the Twins to give the Yankees a lift. The Yankees improved their all-time record at Target Field to 19-5 with a nice come-from-behind 4-1 win Thursday night. Good pitching, timely hitting, lockdown bullpen work. That’s the way these Yankees are designed to win games.
Shut Down Early
The box score says Kyle Gibson allowed three runs in 6.1 innings, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story. He faced the minimum 15 batters through five innings — Alex Rodriguez was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double and Chase Headley was erased on a double play after a single — and only five of those 15 batters hit the ball out of the infield. Yuck.
The Yankees were finally able to get to Gibson in the sixth inning, when they loaded the bases with no outs. A single (Didi Gregorius), a double (Headley), and a walk (Ike Davis) did the trick. Jacoby Ellsbury was able to get a run in with a single, but only one run. Third base coach Joe Espada held Headley up that third even though Byron Buxton’s throw was to third base, not home plate. Naturally, Carlos Beltran followed with an inning-ending double play. Sigh.
Prior to the seventh inning, which we’ll get to in a bit, Gibson was on pace to be the third starter with a 5.00+ ERA to shut the Yankees down in the span of three days. Jorge De La Rosa (8.81 ERA) threw five scoreless innings Tuesday and Chad Bettis (5.85 ERA) allowed two earned runs in six innings Wednesday. Then Gibson (6.49 ERA) cruised through five innings in this game. The Yankees sure have been helping a lot of ERAs this year, huh?
Si! Si! Sabathia
For the third straight start, CC Sabathia came out of the gate with shaky location and ran up a high pitch count early. It looked like it would be a short night, and yet, there he was at the end of the sixth inning, having allowed just one run. Sabathia was able to strand five runners in the first two innings before settling in. Six innings of one-run ball give the big man a 2.20 ERA on the season. 2.20!
Minnesota scored their run in the fourth inning, when ex-Yankee Eduardo Nunez slapped a two-out single through the right side. Max Kepler doubled earlier in the inning and Kurt Suzuki moved him to third with an infield single that literally hit Sabathia. The Twins had their best chance to do damage in the second, when they loaded the bases on a hit-by-pitch (Kepler), a double (Suzuki), and a walk (Buxton). Luckily Robbie Grossman hit a line drive right at Ike Davis at first base.
Sabathia retired seven of the final nine batters he faced following Nunez’s run-scoring single. You can tell Joe Girardi trusts him again because he’s letting him run his pitch well over 100. Sabathia threw 116 pitches in this game — he started the sixth inning with 103 pitches — after throwing 108 pitches in his last start and 111 pitches in the start before that. He averaged only 89 pitches in his first eight starts. Sabathia kicking butt is so fun. So, so fun.
Didi Comes Through
The three-run seventh inning rally started with an A-Rod infield single of all things. He really busted it down the line too. It might have been the hardest he’s run out a ball since coming back last year. Brian McCann followed with a five-pitch walk, then Starlin Castro bunted the runners over. I think he did that on his own. Bunting with two anti-speed demons like A-Rod and McCann on base doesn’t seem like the wisest idea.
Either way, it worked. The bunt ended Gibson’s night as Twins skipper Paul Molitor went to lefty Fernando Abad against Gregorius. Abad has been death on lefties this year. He came into this game holding them to a .097/.125/.133 batting line with a 21.9% strikeout rate. Didi has been really good against lefties this year (.357/.400/.411!), but it still looked like a bad matchup for him. Then Abad threw a first pitch fastball here …
… and Gregorius clobbered it out to right field for a go-ahead three-run home run. It was gone off the bat. Didi doesn’t hit many no-doubters but this one qualified. It looked good off the bat and it had the good sound too. That blast gave the Yankees a 4-1 lead with nine defensive outs to go. Just how they drew it up.
Three-run lead with three innings to go means Girardi could go to his top relievers. Dellin Betances struck out one and allowed a two-out single in the seventh inning. Andrew Miller struck out two in a perfect eighth inning. Aroldis Chapman then closed out the win with a perfect ninth. It’s been a while since Girardi could go to those guys to protect a lead.
Leftovers
The Yankees only had seven hits total. Ellsbury had the single to drive in the team’s first run, plus A-Rod, Gregorius, and Headley had two hits each. That’s it. McCann and Davis drew the only walks. So that’s nine baserunners total. Four came in the sixth inning, when the Yankees scored their first run. Three more came in the seventh inning, when they scored their other three runs. That leaves two baserunners for the other seven innings. Ewww.
Brett Gardner seemed to forget how many strikes there were during his first inning at-bat. The count was full and he tried to bunt for a hit, but it rolled foul. It nearly stayed fair! But still, why bunt there? He had to forget the count. Then, an inning later, A-Rod was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double even though the play was right in front of him and he could see Kepler getting to the ball quickly. Silly mistakes. Been too many of them this year.
Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
You can find both the box score and updated standings at ESPN. MLB.com is the place to go for the video highlights. Here are our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages, and here’s the win probability graph:
Source: FanGraphs
Up Next
This four-game series is just getting started. The Yankees and Twins will play the second game Friday night. That’s another 8pm ET start. Masahiro Tanaka and rookie lefty Pat Dean will be on the mound.
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