Yankees 6, Angels 3, and for eight and a half innings Wednesday night at Angel Stadium, this one looked like it might stay 1-1 into the parking lot. Cam Schlittler made sure it didn't get out of hand. Austin Wells made sure it never got to an 11th.
Wells' two-out, bases-loaded single in the 10th was the whole game in one swing -- a 1-2 fastball from Luke Murphy that found right field, scoring two and flipping a tossup into a laugher. By the time the inning was over, the Yankees had scored five runs on four straight singles and taken the rubber match of the series, 2-1.
The Turning Point
Extra innings started with Amed Rosario parked on second, the automatic runner, and it took a while to cash him in. José Caballero singled to send him to third. Jazz Chisholm Jr. walked to load the bases. Luis García Jr. popped out for the second out, and for a second it looked like the Yankees might strand the whole mess (they'd left 14 men on base by night's end, which tells you something about how stubborn this offense had been all night).
Then Wells got to Murphy. Two runs scored, Chisholm to third. Cody Bellinger singled him home. Trent Grisham singled Wells home. Ben Rice singled in Bellinger. Four hitters, four singles, five runs, and the Angels never got the third out they needed to escape it.
Star of the Game: Schlittler Rewrites the Record Book
Before any of that happened, Schlittler spent eight innings quietly making history. Two hits. One run. Nine strikeouts. Zero walks. Ninety-nine pitches, 71 of them strikes -- the kind of start where you check the line twice because it doesn't look real for a guy facing a lineup with Mike Trout in it.
That was the 19th time this season Schlittler has allowed a run or fewer in a start. That's a new Yankees single-season record, passing the mark of 18 shared by Ron Guidry's 1978 Cy Young season, Whitey Ford in 1964, and Jack Chesbro all the way back in 1904. Good company. Better yet, Schlittler's still adding to it.
He didn't get the win (no decision, if you're scoring at home), because the Yankees' bats needed extra innings to back him up. He also didn't seem to care. That's usually the sign of the right kind of pitcher.
Detmers Made Him Earn It
Give the Angels' Reid Detmers his due, too. Seven innings, six hits, one earned run, eight strikeouts of his own -- the only damage against him a ground-rule double by Rosario in the fourth that scored Bellinger. For seven innings, this was a legitimate pitchers' duel between two guys who deserved a better final line than "no decision."
Vaughn Grissom's solo homer off Schlittler in the seventh tied it at 1-1 and set up the standoff that lasted until the 10th blew it open.
Boone's Bullpen Math Worked, Barely
David Bednar came in for a scoreless ninth -- one hit, three strikeouts -- and got the win when the Yankees broke through an inning later, which is how it works even if Bednar didn't throw a single pitch in the inning that decided it. Michael Fulmer took the 10th with a five-run lead and made it interesting, giving up a two-run homer to Moisés Ballesteros that scored the Angels' own automatic runner, Wade Meckler. Fulmer got the next two outs anyway. A laugher stayed a win, which is really all that matters in the box score.
Yankees take the series 2-1 after dropping the opener 1-10 on Monday, and they move to 80-60, three and a half back of the Rays with a month to play. San Diego's up next.
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.
