The Yankees didn’t get a baserunner against Trevor Bauer until the fifth inning on Saturday — and even then, they got just one hit off…
The Yankees didn’t get a baserunner against Trevor Bauer until the fifth inning on Saturday — and even then, they got just one hit off the Indians right-hander in the inning.
That didn’t stop the Yankees from putting up four runs in that decisive inning en route to a 5-2 win in The Bronx, their fifth straight win and 14th in their past 15 games.
Their streak continued because of four consecutive solid at-bats against Bauer after he had retired the first 13 batters he faced — as well as the Yankees’ ability to take advantage of Cleveland’s mistakes.
And it didn’t hurt that Sonny Gray, who looked lost during consecutive starts before turning it around in his previous outing in Houston, was strong again with Austin Romine behind the plate.
Manager Aaron Boone, who has said repeatedly he’s against giving a pitcher a personal catcher, may have no choice but to continue to line Gray up with Romine instead of Gary Sanchez.
After giving up eight runs over eight innings in two outings throwing to Sanchez, Gray has now limited opponents to four runs over his past 12 innings — all pitching to Romine.
Still, Gray and the Yankees trailed 1-0 after Gray surrendered a two-out homer to Francisco Lindor in the fifth.
The Yankees responded in the bottom of the inning — with some help from Lindor.
Their four-run rally began when Neil Walker walked with one out. Miguel Andujar followed with another walk to bring up Gleyber Torres, who came through with the Yankees’ first hit — a single to center to load the bases.
Romine fell behind 1-2 before he fouled off a pair of 3-2 pitches then walked to drive in a run and tie the game at 1-1.
That brought up Ronald Torreyes, who got the start at short in place of a resting Didi Gregorius.
Torreyes hit a grounder to short, a seemingly sure double-play ball for Lindor. Instead, the two-time All-Star fumbled the grounder for one error, then threw wildly to third, allowing a second run to score, as the Yankees took a 3-1 lead.
Brett Gardner followed with a sacrifice fly to left to drive in Romine and make it 4-1, as the Yankees scored four times in the inning despite getting just one hit.
It was another bad outcome for Bauer — who last pitched at the Stadium in Game 4 of the ALDS, when he failed to get out of the second inning and gave up four runs, all unearned.
Gray, who lowered his ERA to a still unsightly 6.00, needed just 22 pitches to get through the first two innings.
But a leadoff single in the third by Tyler Naquin was followed by a one-out double from Bradley Zimmer — who hustled to second on the liner to center — to set up Lindor. Gray then issued his first walk of the day to load the bases.
Gray recovered to strike out Jason Kipnis on three pitches, then got Jose Ramirez to fly to center to emerge unscathed.
After walking Michael Brantley to start the fourth, Gray got a nice play at third from Andujar, who back-handed a grounder by Edwin Encarnacion and made a strong throw to second for the force.
And the Yankees’ bullpen, which had lost late leads each of the previous two games, this time did the job, with Chad Green tossing two dominant innings and David Robertson finishing with a scoreless ninth for his first save of the season.
