Yankees 2, Cubs 0, and the whole thing turned on two solo home runs and a Will Warren start that might've been his best of the year.
Warren went out and retired twelve batters in a row at one stretch on his way to 6.2 scoreless innings, and by the time the Cubs finally strung together back-to-back singles in the seventh, Amed Rosario and Spencer Jones had already banked all the offense he was going to need. Final line for Warren: 6.2 IP, 0 ER, 4 H, 0 BB, 7 K. He's 8-5 now.
The Turning Point
Warren was cruising through the seventh, two outs, nobody on. Then Alex Bregman singled. Then Ian Happ singled right behind him, and suddenly the tying run was in scoring position with the middle of the Cubs order still to come.
Aaron Boone didn't wait around. He went to Paul Blackburn, and on the very next pitch Nico Hoerner grounded one to short. The umpires ruled Happ safe at second, everybody moves up, bases loaded, two outs. Except the Yankees challenged it (they don't win many of these, so this one felt good), and the umpires reversed it on review. Force out. Inning over. Bregman stranded at third, and the only damage the Cubs would do all day was zero runs.
Star of the Game: Will Warren
Warren gets it, and it's not close. Seven strikeouts, zero walks, four hits scattered across six-plus innings against a Cubs lineup that had Bregman, Happ and Michael Busch all going. He worked ahead all afternoon (88 pitches, 55 for strikes) and the only trouble he saw all day came on those two singles that ended his outing.
Give Blackburn a share of it too. He finished off the seventh, then came back out for the eighth and struck out the side -- Michael Conforto, Dansby Swanson and Miguel Amaya, all swinging. That's 1.1 innings of relief without allowing a baserunner.
Key At-Bats
Rosario broke a 15-game drought without a homer or an RBI in the top of the fourth, turning on a pitch from Shota Imanaga and sending it 450 feet into the left-center bleachers. His tenth of the season, and it looked like it had been building up in him for two weeks.
One inning later, Jones got his turn. He jumped an 0-1 sinker and drove it 418 feet to right-center for his fourth homer of the year. That made it 2-0, and it stayed that way.
Imanaga didn't pitch badly, either (6.2 innings, six strikeouts, zero walks). The only runs he allowed came on those two solo shots. Some days you get out-dueled by a lineup. This was a day he got out-dueled by a matchup he had no real answer for.
David Bednar closed it out in the ninth for his 23rd save, and it wasn't totally clean -- Pedro Ramírez singled with one out -- but Bednar got Busch to fly out and Bregman to ground out to end it before anyone in the Bronx had to sweat.
The Call That Worked
Boone's decision to go to Blackburn the moment Warren hit trouble, instead of trying to squeeze one more out of a starter who'd already thrown 88 pitches, is the kind of move that only gets talked about when it works. It worked.
The Yankees are 62-48 now, three games back of the Rays in the AL East, and this is just game one of three at Wrigley. Two more to play this weekend, and if Warren's back to missing bats like this instead of getting hit around, the rotation just got a lot less scary heading into August.
Jimmy writes the Bronx Pinstripes game recap after every Yankees game. Beat-reporter pacing, fan's heartbeat. He calls opposing players by last name and has no patience for dead-air innings.
