Judge ties DiMaggio as Yankees take down the Tigers 9-3 to salvage series finale

New York—The Yankees salvaged the final game of this three-game series against the Tigers with a 9-3 win on 9/11. Cam Schlittler got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against Tyler Holton, an opener for the Tigers. 

Cam worked an easy 1-2-3 top of the first inning and recorded his first two strikeouts of the ballgame. 

With one out in the bottom of the first inning, Aaron Judge launched a solo shot into the Tigers' bullpen, his 45th home run of the year, to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead. 

Cam surrendered three straight singles, including an RBI single to tie the game up at 1-1 in the top of the second inning. 

Jazz lined a single to right field to lead off the bottom of the second inning, then swiped second base, his 28th stolen base of the season. A couple of batters later, Ben Rice lined an RBI double into the right field corner to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. The next batter, Jose Caballero, came through with an RBI single, making it a 3-1 game. 

Judge led off the bottom of the third inning with his second solo bomb of the night and 46th of the season to make it a 4-1 game. With that home run from Judge, he tied Joe DiMaggio for fourth on the Yankees' all-time home run list.

A couple of batters later, Giancarlo Stanton crushed his 20th home run of the year to make it a 5-1 game, the seventh Yankee to join the 20 home run club on the Yankees this year, tying a franchise record. 

"It's amazing," Judge said on tying DiMaggio. "You don't really know what's going on until it's over with, but my main focus is what we've got to do out here. You know, we've got a you know division leader with the Tigers ahead of us. We had to face them, and you know, we've got some big games in Boston coming up. So that's kind of where my focus is at." 

"Joe DiMaggio in a lot of ways transcended baseball," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "So to be next to him on a list, and you know, as he's going to be waving as he is going by, it's impressive, and it's been a privilege having a front row seat to that."

Rice led off the bottom of the fourth inning with his second double of the night, and Caballero followed that up with his second single of the night to put runners at the corners with nobody out. Caballero then stole second base, his 45th of the year. The next batter, Austin Slater, picked up an RBI single, making it a 6-1 game. A Cody Bellinger RBI single made it a 7-1 ballgame. A couple of batters later, Jazz picked up a two-run single to make it a 9-1 game. 

In the top of the fifth inning, Cam gave up a single and walked back-to-back batters to load the bases, but picked up his sixth strikeout of the night to help work into and out of trouble. 

Ryan Yarbrough replaced Cam and worked a scoreless top of the seventh inning with a strikeout. 

Cam Schlittler's final line: Six innings pitched, five hits allowed, one earned run, two walks, 13 swings and misses, and seven strikeouts on 95 pitches. Cam threw his fastball over half the time at 54%, the cutter 21%, the curveball 18%, the sinker 6%, and the sweeper 1% of the time. Cam had a huge bounce-back start after the worst outing of his career against the Blue Jays on Friday; he was nasty tonight. 

"Probably not tipping my pitches," Cam said on the adjustment he made in between starts. "So for me, that was something I worked on all week. So, for me to go out there and, you know, at least out of the stretch, not giving that slight edge. Definitely made me more confident in what I need to do out there." 

"He was locked in, focused, under control," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "Stuff was really good, filling up the strike zone. They pressured him a couple times. He makes a huge pitch there with the bases loaded to kind of thwart their one real chance to kind get right back into the game. And to give us six strong was big." 

Paul Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the seventh inning with a single to right field. A couple of batters later, Caballero and Ryan McMahon worked back-to-back walks. However, Slater and Judge struck out to strand the bases loaded. 

Yarbrough remained in the game for the top of the eighth inning and worked a scoreless frame. 

In the top of the ninth inning, Gleyber Torres picked up an RBI groundout to make it a 9-3 ballgame. Yarbrough then picked up the final out of the game to end this one 9-3 and help the Yankees avoid being swept. 

The Yankees will now head to Boston to take on the Red Sox in a huge three-game set. Luis Gil will get the starting nod for the Yankees and face off against Lucas Giolito. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network. 

"It's going to be fun, the boys are pumped up., they're excited, they're ready to roll," Judge said on facing the Red Sox this weekend.

My thoughts on the game: Cam was dominant tonight against one of the best teams in baseball to give the Yankees a much-needed win. The offense showed up in a big way with nine runs and 14 hits. Judge had a big day with three hits and two home runs. Stanton launched a long 425-foot home run, and Rice had a couple of doubles.  Jazz and Caballero each had two hits and two stolen bases; the offense was just working all around. Yarbrough picked up the final nine outs to help save the bullpen with a massive series against the Red Sox coming up. Also, before the game, we found out that Anthony Volpe has been playing with a partial labrum tear, which is no surprise given the Yankees' joke of a medical staff. That explains why he has been struggling so much lately. On to tomorrow, as the Yankees will head to Boston to close out this 12-game gauntlet.