Yankees.com: Hitless until the 8th, Yanks cap rally with Judge walk-off and ‘sick’ slide

From Bryan Hoch:

Anthony Volpe anchored his left foot on third base like a track star in the blocks, watching the flight of Aaron Judge’s medium-depth fly to center field. The Yankees were challenging Julio Rodríguez’s arm, daring him to make a perfect throw with the game on the line.

That’s exactly what happened. And still, the Yankees won.

Volpe dove home safely, his right hand slapping the plate just ahead of Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh’s tag. Judge’s sacrifice fly sealed a 6-5, 10-inning victory over the Mariners on Thursday evening at Yankee Stadium, capping a furious comeback after the Yanks were held hitless into the eighth inning.

“I knew who was at third, so my whole thought going into it was get the ball in the air and let [Volpe] take care of the rest,” Judge said. “What a great slide — there’s nobody else I’d want out there in a situation like that besides Volpe.”

Volpe is still in a huge hitting slump, but at least his baserunning helped save the day in this one, as that was an outstanding throw to the plate by Julio Rodriguez, and he seemingly had Volpe dead to right on an inning-ending double play, but Volpe’s brilliant slide won the day.

I’ve obviously seen players try slides like that before, but rarely as well-executed as Volpe there. Cal Raleigh didn’t even do a bad job, Volpe just did a GOOD job (you could argue that Rodriguez should have delivered the ball more centered, but, I mean, come the fuck on, he got the ball to the catcher with plenty of time before the runner arrived. You can’t complain about Rodriguez’s throw at all).

Beyond that, I mean, as we have noted all year, the Yankees haven’t been coming from behind PERIOD, and had no comebacks from 3 runs or more all season, so to come back from 5-0 heading into the eighth inning while being NO-HIT is just amazing.

Marcus Stroman was okay. He tweaked his knee in the fourth, but I don’t think it really mattered much. I think he’ll make his next start. He’s not a terrible #5 starter. Clayton Beeter was just the perfect example of making life difficult for yourself. He fucked around on Randy Arozarena before walking him, and then gave up a 0-2 three-run home to Jorge Polanco. Beeter’s stuff is good, but he has to be smarter about how to pitch. That’s different from, say, Geoff Hartlieb, whose stuff just doesn’t seem to be good enough to get Major League hitters out. Beeter CAN clearly get Major League hitters out, he just pitches like a moron. His stuff is so good that I’d still like to see what he could do. J.T. Brubaker was surprisingly effective, and once the game was close, Boone smartly went to a better reliever, Ian Hamilton, to keep it a two-run game in the ninth. Hamilton pitched very well. Devin Williams was downright dominant AGAIN in the ninth inning. Williams is just a totally different pitcher now.

Austin Wells had a major hit to tie the game (Andres Munoz, the great Seattle closer, was tipping his pitches all inning, which obviously helped a lot. Amusingly, though, even though Jazz was sitting on a pitch, he STILL couldn’t get a hit on it, and instead just hit a big fly ball), and then Oswald Peraza almost helped choke away the win by failing to get a bunt down in the 10th inning. If you’re that shitty of a hitter, you HAVE to be able to bunt, dude. Bebop asked if Nicky Lopez might be a better answer than Vivas or Peraza. Lopez is hot right now in AAA. Sadly, I think he would not be a better option. It’s going to be either someone Cash trades for (and the pickings are very slim there) or it’s going to be Jeimer Candelario (who is very much NOT hot in AAA, so it’s going to be a pick-up, I guess).

I’d like to see J.C. Escarra start on Friday, just to see if he could play the position for a full game.

The featured image is Volpe’s amazing slide to win the game.