Yankees 6, Rockies 1 on Wednesday night, and the whole thing turned on one swing in the third.
George Lombard Jr. hit a grand slam off Tomoyuki Sugano, and that was pretty much that. Six-plus innings of nothing much from either offense around it, but you only need one at-bat like that to decide a ballgame in September.
It was 34,413 at the Stadium on a warm, cloudy night (81 degrees, a steady crosswind), which is a solid crowd for a Wednesday against a team that's been buried in the NL West most of the summer. They got a show anyway. This is game 2 of 3 against Colorado, and the Yankees have now taken both -- a series they'll look to sweep Thursday.
The Turning Point
The Yankees had already scratched across a run in the second when Luis García Jr. went deep. Then the third inning happened.
Aaron Judge and García both reached, Spencer Jones walked to load the bases, and Lombard turned on a Sugano pitch and sent it 353 feet to right field. Four runs in, 5-0 Yankees, and the Rockies never got closer than four.
The numbers back up what it felt like watching it live: that slam was worth a 23.3 percent swing in win probability, the single biggest play of the night. Nothing else that night moved the needle that much in one swing.
Star of the Game
Lombard's line: 1-for-4, the slam, 4 RBI, a run scored. That's the whole stat sheet and it's still the best sentence in it.
He's not a household name yet outside the Bronx (give it time), but nights like this are how that changes. One swing, four runs, game basically over before the seventh-inning stretch.
The Yankees' own account leaned into it afterward -- "Ain't it grand, George?" -- which is exactly the right amount of corny for a night like this.
Key At-Bats
García's second-inning homer doesn't get remembered the same way once the slam happens three innings later, but it was the first real crack in Sugano's outing -- a 413-foot shot to right-center that set the tone early.
Bellinger got his own turn in the eighth, a line-drive job to right field that made it 6-1 and put a bow on the scoring. Nobody was sweating by that point (Fulmer closed it out clean in the ninth), but a homer's a homer.
Connor Norby's solo shot off Warren in the fifth was the lone blemish on an otherwise dominant start -- Warren went 6 innings, struck out 8, walked 2, and allowed just the one run. That's a start you'll take against anybody, let alone a lineup that had been hanging around.
The Pitching Matchup That Wasn't Close
Warren outpitched Sugano in every way that mattered. Eight strikeouts against one earned run is a good week for some guys, let alone a good start. Sugano, by contrast, gave up five runs on two homers and just never recovered from the third inning.
The bullpen didn't have much drama to handle -- Schreiber, Blackburn and Fulmer combined for three scoreless innings to close it out, which is the kind of bullpen night you forget about by the next morning. That's the goal.
Boone didn't need to get cute with any of it. Warren went the standard six, the three relievers each took an inning, and Fulmer finished what he started in the ninth. No stretched-out arms, no bullpen phone ringing off the hook in a one-sided game -- exactly the kind of night you want in the middle of a stretch run.
Two in a row now. The Yankees sit at 83-62, four games back of the Rays in the East, and every win like this one -- efficient, low-drama, decided by the third inning -- is the kind you bank without thinking twice about it.
Go finish the sweep Thursday.
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.
