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on August 18, 2015 at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx borough of New York City.

Yankees game 118: A-Rod goes grand

Minnesota Twins 4 – New York Yankees 8

Alex Rodriguez came up big in a grand situation in tonight’s win.

Through the first three innings, CC Sabathia dominated the Twins, including getting a put out on a play that had him covering first base in the first inning. For the Yankees, they had three base runners against Mike Pelfrey but were not able to bring any of them around to score. One of the hotter bats in the lineup got the offense started in the fourth inning.

With one out in the fourth inning, Carlos Beltran hit a high fly ball to left field that bounced over the wall for a ground-rule double. Rookie Greg Bird came through with the runner in scoring position with a single to right field, scoring Beltran and putting the first run on the board.

Through the first four innings, CC Sabathia was perfect, 12 batters faced, 12 batters retired. Unfortunately he lost the perfect game, no-hitter and shutout in the fifth inning.

After retiring the first batter in the fifth, Trevor Plouffe was walked to end the perfect game bid. After two outs, Eduardo Escobar ended the no-hit bid with a bloop single that fell in to shallow right field. Kurt Suzuki ended the shutout with a single to left field but the relay of Brett Gardner to Didi Gregorius to Brian McCann prevented the second run from scoring with a perfect throw home, keeping the game tied at 1.

CC Sabathia got through the sixth inning but the seventh inning was his difficult last inning of work.

After a walk to Joe Mauer, rookie Miguel Sano jumped on a poor changeup and put it into the left field seats for a two-run home run.

CC Sabathia got the next two outs but the bottom of the order got it going one more time. Eduardo Escobar and Kurt Suzuki hit a pair of singles to knock the Yankees lefty out of the game. Nick Rumbelow came in for relief but gave up a run-scoring single to Shane Robinson before ending the inning with the Yankees trailing by three.

In 6 2/3 innings, CC Sabathia allowed four runs on five hits and three walks while striking out five.

With the Yankees trailing by three, the Yankees looked to start the rally with a pinch-hitter. Against reliever Ryan O’Rourke, Chase Headley came off the bench with a single. Brendan Ryan walked on a full count, so a clear rally was going to begin. After the first out on a fly out by Ellsbury, Brett Gardner walked on a full count Coming in for relief with the bases loaded, J.R. Graham entered against Alex Rodriguez.

Entering the at-bat, Alex Rodriguez was in a 1-for-27 slump but he had good contact in his first two at-bats. In addition, he entered this game with 24 career grand slams so recent history lost to all-time history as Alex Rodriguez hit a moonshot to right center field for his 25th home run of the season which was also his 25th grand slam of his career.

The Yankees entered the inning with a three-run deficit and exited the inning with a one-run lead.

Justin Wilson came in for the eighth inning and got the first two outs but due to the exhausting effort yesterday, was replaced by the fairly rested closer Andrew Miller, for a four-out save. Miller struck out Sano to end the eighth inning. The offense made it easier on the closer in the bottom half of the inning.

Greg Bird started the inning with a single to center field. Didi Gregorius hit a single to right and the Yankees were rallying again. Chase Headley hit a two-run double to right field to extend the Yankees lead to three.

Brendan Ryan advanced Headley to third on a sacrifice and Jacoby Ellsbury hit a run-scoring single to right field, giving the Yankees a four-run lead.

In the ninth inning, Andrew Miller allowed a two-out double but struck out the last batter to end the game and complete an impressive comeback win.

 

Win – Nick Rumbelow (1-0)

Loss – J.R. Graham (0-1)

Save – Andrew Miller (27)

 

Notables

Twins

*Miguel Sano – 1 for 4, R, Two-run home run (9) in the 7th, 2 RBI (29)

*Eduardo Escobar – 3 for 4, R, 2B

Yankees

*Alex Rodriguez – 1 for 5, R, Grand slam (25) in the 7th, 4 RBI (67)

*Chase Headley – 2 for 2, 2 R, 2B, 2 RBI (50)

 

Current Yankees Record: 66-52