The New York Yankees defeated the Minnesota Twins 8-7 in 10 innings Monday night on a walk-off ground out by Chase Headley. Yankees closer Andrew Miller came away with the win and improves to 1-2 on the season, while Twins closer Glen Perkins was handed the loss. The Yankees are now 3-7 in extra inning games this season. With the win the Yankees move to a game up of the Toronto Blue Jays in first place in the AL East.
New York got on the board first in this wild game thanks to a Brian McCann, who is red hot at the plate, three-run shot to right in the first inning, scoring Jacoby Ellsbury and Alex Rodriguez.
In the top of the second inning the Yankees were forced to go to their bullpen early when right-handed pitcher Bryan Mitchell was struck in the face by a line drive. According to the Yankees he has a small nasal fracture.
Minnesota would get a run back, however, in the second inning when former Yankee Eduardo Nunez singled home Eddie Rosario to make it a 3-1 ballgame, that would be one of the last batters Bryan Mitchell would go up against.
In the third inning, Miguel Sanó hit a long ball to left scoring Brian Dozier to make it a tied ballgame 3-3. Later in the inning, Eddie Rosario singled to right, which scored Trevor Plouffe to give the Twins their first lead of the game 4-3. The Yankees would retake the lead in the bottom half of the inning when Brian McCann singled to right center, scoring Alex Rodriguez and Brett Gardner.
However, the Twins would regain control in the next inning when Aaron Hicks hit a solo shot to make it a 5-5 game. Minnesota would regain the lead in the fifth inning as Trevor Plouffe hit a solo homer to right, making it a 6-5 game. The very next inning, Trevor Plouffe would once again come up and single home Joe Mauer.
Carlos Beltran, who was both the hero and the goat in the Toronto series, regained the hero title in the bottom of the sixth inning as he connected on a two-run homer to score Greg Bird and tie the game up at seven.
The bottom of the 10th inning was one of the craziest innings this writer has ever seen. It started with Greg Bird hitting a double off the wall in right. Then Brian McCann hit a double that hit off of Eddie Rosario’s thumb in his glove, and because Greg Bird had to hold up due to him not knowing if Rosario would catch it he only advanced to third. Beltran came up next, trying to be the hero in three out of the last four games, but he was intentionally walked to load the bases with nobody out.
Prior to Chase Headley’s at-bat, the Twins took out Torii Hunter and replaced him with Eduardo Escobar. That gave Minnesota five infielders and two outfielders with zero outs in the inning. Chase Headley grounded it to shortstop Eduardo Nunez, who had trouble fielding it and threw it to first in time for the out. However, it didn’t matter as the run scored anyway giving the Yankees an 8-7 win in extra innings.
Andrew Miller came in for the 10th inning as the Yankees last pitcher available and pitched well getting a 1-2-3 inning. Brian McCann had a brilliant day at the plate and behind it, as threw out three runners at second base and collected five RBIs. McCann is only the third player since 1940 to do that.
Other than the Mitchell injury, the Yankees had more injury trouble in this game. In the sixth inning, Mark Teixeira fouled a ball off his lower right leg. According to Joe Girardi the X-rays came back negative, but Tex was noticeably in pain and limping to first before being taken out of the game in favor of Greg Bird.
Joe Girardi said this postgame about the win, “Really thankful, our guys did a tremendous job, you know, fighting back, big two-run homer by Carlos (Beltran), later in the game and then we had the bases loaded in the, I don’t even know what inning it was, was it the eighth and we don’t score and then they just kept going and you get an outstanding performance by our bullpen tonight. They did a good job and I don’t know what I have tomorrow but we won tonight.”
According to Girardi, if the game kept going C.C. Sabathia was going to come on and pitch. Bryan Mitchell wasn't originally supposed to start tonight -- Sabathia was scheduled to start but was scratched a few hours before the game. Joe Girardi said it was not because of the TMZ video that surfaced of C.C. being restrained on the street where a brawl was taking place outside a Toronto nightclub.
The Yankees and Twins go back at it tomorrow with C.C. Sabathia going up against former Met right-hander Mike Pelfrey. The Yankees look to take the second game in this three-game set against the Twins at Yankee Stadium tomorrow.