Bellinger’s bomb, Fried’s gem, and Volpe’s redemption fuel the Yankees' win

New York— The Yankees won a stressful one 7-5 over the Rays to take game two of this four-game series. Max Fried got the start for the Yankees and faced off against Joe Boyle. 

Yandy Diaz led the ballgame off with a single to right field. It then looked like the Yankees had a double play, but a back-breaking error from Anthony Volpe allowed both runners to reach base. That Volpe error came back to cost the Yankees as Jonny DeLuca sent a two-out two-run triple in the right-center gap to give the Rays a 2-0 lead. 

"I've never really experienced something like this, but you got really good guys around me,” Volpe said on his defensive struggles. “I know what I'm capable of."

In the bottom of the first inning, Trent Grisham worked a leadoff walk, but that would be all for the Yankees. 

Jonathan Aranda launched a solo home run to lead off the top of the third inning to make it a 3-0 game. 

Austin Wells and Ben Rice worked a couple of walks in the bottom of the third inning. Cody Bellinger then tied the ballgame up at 3-3 with his 20th home run of the season. 

"Honestly, he's got really, really nasty stuff," Belli said about his home run of Boyle. "A lot of guys had a lot of good ABs in front of me. I think it was Wells and Rice, and I had a few guys on base there. And, you know, honestly, just didn't try to do too much and just tried to put my best awing on the ball." 

In the bottom of the fourth inning, Jasson Dominguez led things off with a single right back up the middle, his second hit of the ballgame. Dominguez then stole second base, his 16th stolen base of the season. Ryan MaMahon then flew out to deep left field, and Dominguez tagged up and advanced to third. Volpe then came through with an RBI single to center to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead. Wells then reached on an E4, and Volpe stole third, forcing a bad throw into left field, allowing Volpe to come across to score to make it a 5-3 game. Paul Goldschmidt picked up a two-out RBI single to left field to make it a 6-3 game. 

Fried worked an easy 1-2-3 top of the fifth inning and picked up two strikeouts to put his total up to seven for the ballgame. 

In the top of the sixth inning, Fried retired the Rays in order to make it 12 straight hitters retired and picked up his eighth strikeout of the ballgame. 

Wells, Grisham, and Rice went down in order for the Yankees in the bottom of the sixth inning. 

Fried picked up the first two outs of the seventh, then walked a batter. It looked like Aaron Boone was going to take Fried out, but Fried convinced him to stay in and served up an RBI double to Taylor Walls to make it a 6-4 game. Jonathan Loáisiga took over for Fried on the mound and picked up the final out of the frame to keep it a two-run game. 

"Just a conversation," said Fried on Boone's mound visit. "How are you feeling? And looked at me and said, I want you to get this guy. And I said, I got him. And unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the pitches to do it, but you know, thankful for the opportunity. I want to make sure that when I get that opportunity again to make sure it pays off." 

Max Fried's final line: 6.2 innings pitched, four hits allowed, four runs, only two earned due to the Volpe error, two walks, 17 swings and misses, and nine strikeouts on a career high 111 pitches. Fried threw his cutter 32% of the time, the curveball 31%, the sinker 10%, the sweeper 9%, the changeup 8%, the fastball 5%, and the slider 3% of the time. Fried was excellent tonight, his best start of July so far, as his ERA is now 2.62 on the season. 

"I think he leaned on his curveball a little bit there, got them a little off balance," Wells said on Fried's start. "And then they didn't really find the barrel there at the end. So he did a good job of mixing it up. And it was a really solid start for us." 

Loáisiga remained in the game for the top of the eighth inning and immediately served up a back-to-back singles. Volpe and Jazz Chisholm Jr. then turned a huge 6-4-3 double play for the first two outs of the inning, and Ryan McMahon made a nice running catch in foul territory to help Loáisiga work into and out of trouble. 

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Volpe launched a 452-foot bomb, his 15th home run of the season and fifth of the second half, to tack on a huge insurance run, making it a 7-4 game. 

The Yankees' closer Devin Williams was called upon to pitch the top of the ninth inning and served up a leadoff triple. An RBI groundout from Tristan Gray made it a 7-5 game. It then looked like the game was over, but the second error of the ballgame for Volpe kept the game alive. But Williams did it himself and picked up a huge strikeout to end this one 7-5 with the tying run on second base.

"He made great pitches the whole inning," Wells said on helping Williams navigate through the ninth. "And he got a lot of ground balls, got a lot of weak hits, so you know, he put us in a spot to win that game there at the end." 

Will do it all over again tomorrow with Will Warren getting the starting nod for the Yankees, facing off against Zack Littell. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

My thoughts on the game: That game took 10 years off my life. Great start from Fried tonight as he didn't get any help from Volpe's defense in the first inning, but settled in nicely after that, giving the Yankees some much-needed length. Volpe had a weird game tonight as he made two crucial errors, one of them allowing two runs to score and the other one to extend the game. However, Volpe made up for it at the plate, launching his longest home run of his career, picking up an RBI single, and manufacturing a run on the base paths. Belli had a huge three-run bomb to tie the game after going down early. McMahon didn't have any hits tonight, but made a handful of great plays, including a couple of nice plays in the ninth. Dominguez had two hits tonight, and Goldy Knocks also had an RBI single. Loáisiga also stepped up big, picking four stressful outs. Williams, who didn't have the best command tonight and didn't get much help from Volpe on defense, stepped up big to pick up the save. On to tomorrow, as the Yankees will look to win two games in a row to get back to 10 games above .500, with the trade deadline quickly approaching. 

"From my experience, I've been on a lot of teams that have added at the deadline," Fried said on adding help before the deadline. "And you just got to take care of business every day. It's not something that we can control. The guys that we're going to battle with in here, we're gonna be supportive. And we're going to go out there and believe that this group's good enough to win a ball game that day. And if other people come in, then great. We'll more than welcome them in. But, yeah, that's a little just out of our control, and we have baseball games to win.”