Yankees 4, Mariners 1, and for six innings Tuesday night neither lineup could buy a hit that mattered.
Then the seventh showed up. Nine batters, four runs, one inning -- and a series-opening win over a Seattle club that is currently circling the drain.
It was game one of three at the Stadium against the Mariners (56-64), losers of five straight and 14 of their last 19 (a season-worst eight games under .500 for them). Ryan McMahon and Trent Grisham wound up being the answer neither Bryan Woo nor Seattle's bullpen had for it.
The Seventh, All at Once
Woo was sharp for Seattle -- 5.0 IP, 0 ER, 5 K -- and Ryan Weathers matched him zero for zero into the sixth. Then Randy Arozarena turned around a fly ball to right for a solo homer, and the Mariners had their only lead of the night.
That lasted exactly one half-inning.
Luis García Jr. led off the bottom of the seventh with his second double of the game. Jazz Chisholm Jr. singled him to third, then stole second while George Lombard Jr. struck out (nice bit of business, getting into scoring position on a play where the Yankees didn't even put the ball in play). Spencer Jones walked to load the bases, and that's when Michael Rucker's night fell apart.
McMahon got a ground ball through the left side to score two and give the Yankees the lead for good. Austin Wells singled to reload the bases. Grisham followed with a two-run single of his own, and just like that a scoreless duel was a 4-1 ballgame.
Ryan McMahon's Night
McMahon's line doesn't scream loud -- 1-for-3, two RBI, a run scored, a strikeout -- but the win-probability math says otherwise. His go-ahead single was worth more than a quarter of the swing in this game's outcome, by far the biggest single play of the night.
It's the kind of at-bat that doesn't make a highlight reel next to a home run, but it's the one Aaron Boone will remember when the bases are loaded again in September.
García deserves a mention too. Two doubles on the night, and he was the guy who got the seventh-inning snowball rolling in the first place.
Weathers Deals, Then the Pen Closes It
Weathers went 5.2 innings, allowed just the one run on two hits with three walks and four strikeouts. The wire reports have him at 23 consecutive scoreless innings across his last three starts before Arozarena found one -- that's a real stretch of pitching, and it's easy to forget about it once the offense bails him out of a no-decision.
From there it was clean work out of the pen. Tim Hill worked 1.1 scoreless innings for the win (he's up to 4-2), Brent Headrick struck out two in a perfect eighth, and David Bednar needed just 19 pitches to nail down his 27th save. He gave up a two-out single in the ninth, then got Cal Raleigh swinging to end it.
A Mariners Team in Freefall
Rucker took the loss and got tagged with a blown save in the same disaster of an inning -- 0.1 IP, four runs, three hits, a walk. That's the kind of outing that sums up where Seattle is right now: a team that's lost five in a row and can't find a way to slow the bleeding.
Not the Yankees' problem. They'll take it.
New York improves to 68-52 and holds down the top AL wild-card spot, with a chance to make it two straight over Seattle on Wednesday. Same building, same lineup card mostly -- the Mariners just need to find a way to get through nine innings without the wheels coming off.
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.
