Yankees 10, Mariners 5, and for about four innings, this one didn't look like it was going that way.
Seattle jumped Will Warren for three homers before Trent Grisham turned the whole night around, going deep twice and driving in four as the Yankees clawed back from an early 4-1 deficit, tied it, then blew it open with a three-run seventh at the Stadium. It's the Yankees' first double-digit run total since July 9 in Tampa Bay, and it moved them to 68-52, still 6.0 games back of the Rays in the AL East but riding a two-game winning streak with a series clinch on the table.
The Turning Point
The game was tied 5-5 in the seventh, and Gabe Speier walked into a buzzsaw. Grisham ripped a double off him to score George Lombard Jr. and put the Yankees ahead for good, a swing that carried the single biggest win-probability shift of the night (call it a coin flip that suddenly wasn't). Ben Rice followed with an RBI single, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. worked a bases-loaded walk to make it 8-5 before the inning was over.
Speier came in trying to hold a tie game and left having allowed three runs without much to show for it -- that's the inning that decided this one, and Speier took the loss for it, not Mariners starter Bryce Miller (who actually pitched well enough to win most nights).
Star of the Game: Grisham Does It All
Grisham went 3-for-5 with two homers, a double, four RBI and three runs scored, and the stat line almost undersells how much of this game ran through him. His solo shot off Miller in the fifth cut the deficit to 5-4, the go-ahead double in the seventh broke it open, and a two-run blast off Nick Davila in the eighth (398 feet, no doubt about it) put the finishing touches on it. Three different pitchers, three different innings, one guy doing all the damage.
Key At-Bats and Pitching Lines
It didn't start well. Randy Arozarena and Julio Rodriguez both went deep in the top of the first before the Yankees had even batted, and Dominic Canzone piled on in the third to make it 4-1. Warren allowed all three of those homers and finished with five earned runs on six hits over four innings, the kind of start that makes a manager start working the phone early.
Spencer Jones did his part to keep the deficit manageable, doubling in the third and again in the fifth (the second one tied the game at 5), and Ben Rice scored three times and singled home an insurance run in the seventh. On the mound, Paul Blackburn picked up the win with 1.2 scoreless innings and, more importantly, picked Josh Naylor off first to end a Mariners threat in the seventh with the game still uncomfortably close. Tim Hill bridged the sixth clean in between.
Miller took the ball for Seattle and gave the Mariners six innings of five-run, five-strikeout ball -- not great, not the reason they lost. That distinction belongs to Speier, who served up the go-ahead double and never got the lead back.
Boone's Bullpen Calls
Aaron Boone stuck with Warren through the third homer allowed, which is defensible with a taxed bullpen this deep into August but still a rough watch live. The call that actually worked was going to Fernando Cruz and Hill to keep the game within reach through the middle innings, which gave the lineup enough runway to do what it did in the seventh. Boone's bullpen management doesn't always draw headlines, but it bought the time that mattered here.
Ten runs, two Grisham homers, and a series lead heading into the finale. Go close it out.
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.
