The way the season has begun for the Yankees, one step back has been accompanied by two steps forward.
For the first time this season, they could not rely upon supreme pitching, the club’s historic run thwarted with Ryan Weathers and later Camilo Doval on the mound.
It did not matter. The Yankees turned to Giancarlo Stanton and a multi-pronged offensive attack that helped them score nine of the final 12 runs to seize a wild game from the Marlins.
The Yankees dug a four-run hole, climbed back on top, blew that lead and then surged back ahead on the back (and legs) of Stanton in a roller-coaster, 9-7 victory in The Bronx on Saturday night. The 44,150 shivering fans on hand were rewarded for not leaving early on a night when the wind chill (in the 30s) and early deficit (trailing 4-0 after 4 innings) made the notion appealing.
With the comeback, the Yankees (7-1) matched their best start through eight decisions in franchise history, reaching a mark they had not reached since 2004.
Victory No. 7 was created differently. Yankees pitching had allowed just eight runs over the first seven games, matching the 2002 Giants and 1993 Braves for the fewest in MLB history.
Weathers then allowed three runs before the end of the second inning and did not escape the fourth. Doval allowed two more in a wayward, lead-costing eighth.
The biggest moment belonged to Stanton, though, who watched Doval struggle in the top of the eighth and then stepped up with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning with the game tied.
Stanton, who is known for blasts, simply poked a single through the left side that plated two go-ahead runs and became the biggest swing of the game.
The Yankees hope this season ends differently in part because they believe they will be less reliant on the long ball and can jump-start their offense using various means. Stanton — and his teammates — demonstrated as much during the comeback:
- In the fifth, the four-run deficit was cut in half when Aaron Judge rocketed a single and Cody Bellinger followed by crushing a Max Meyer slider over the wall in right-center for a two-run shot and his first dinger of the season.
- In the sixth, small ball and substitutions were the key. A pinch-hitting Paul Goldschmidt walked before José Caballero was drilled. Trent Grisham chopped an RBI single through the left side for one run before Judge snuck a single down the first-base line for another to tie it. Needing contact, the Yankees found it again with Bellinger, who lifted a fly ball to left that was just deep enough to score Grisham from third as he angled a slide and dragged his foot across home plate.
- Insurance arrived in the seventh in a fashion that the Yankees probably cannot count upon ever happening again. Stanton — whose last steal came in the pandemic season of 2020 — walked, took a lead, took a bigger lead as he was not being held on the base and then took off for a sneak-attack steal. He moved to third on a groundout and then scored on a two-out passed ball, one of the slowest runners in baseball single-handedly manufacturing a run that made it 6-4.
That lead disappeared in the eighth, when Doval — who struggled last season after coming over from the Giants — allowed a single to Liam Hicks and a double to Xavier Edwards to encounter danger. In Doval’s defense, Edwards saw two pitches that might have been strikes called balls. But the Yankees had no challenges left, burned in particular by a poor challenge from Ben Rice for a second straight game.
A poor use of the challenges did not matter. Neither did a misplay from Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the ninth, which created more work for David Bednar (fourth save). Neither did the struggles of Weathers, who let up three runs in 3 ²/₃ innings.
A Yankees offense that scored every which way made sure of that.
