Yankees fall 2-1 as Mariners walk it off in the ninth
- Davis Cornell
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
The New York Yankees couldn’t capitalize on late opportunities and saw their bullpen falter for the first time this season, falling 2-1 on a walk-off to the Seattle Mariners. Ryan Weather made his Yankee debut on the mound and faced Luis Castillo.
Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge, and Cody Bellinger went down in order for the Yankees to kick things off in the top of the first.
Weathers navigated around a leadoff walk and recorded a pair of strikeouts in his first inning of work in his Yankee debut.
The Mariners struck first in the bottom of the second thanks to a broken bat RBI bloop single to right field from Cole Young, making it 1-0. Weathers recorded his fourth strikeout of the ballgame to strand runners at the corners and limit the damage.
The Yankees' offense couldn't get anything going early on, but they were using the new ABS system to their advantage, going 5-for-5 on challenges in the first four innings. Aaron Boone and the Yankees were letting the home plate umpire, Mike Estabrook, hear it as he kept calling low strikes
Weather worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the fourth inning and recorded a pair of strikeouts, putting his punchout total up to seven on the night.
Weathers surrendered back-to-back singles to start the bottom of the fifth inning, then induced a groundout to first base, allowing both runners to move into scoring position and ending his day. Fernando Cruz replaced Weathers and struck out Dominic Canzone and Julio Rodriguez on some nasty splitters to strand two runners in scoring position.
Ryan Weathers' stuff looked good tonight; he just fell behind in too many counts and ran out of gas in the fifth inning. Weathers tossed 4.1 innings, allowing one run, four hits, two walks, six swings and misses, and struck out seven on 77 pitches. Weathers threw his fastball 42% of the time, the sinker 23%, the sweeper 22%, and the changeup 13% of the time. Weathers topped out at 98.9 mph and averaged 96.6 mph on his heater.
“I definitely want to be more efficient and want to in the zone a little bit more,” Weathers said. “I don't want to hang my hat on 4.1 Innings. I want to get deeper into the ball game. And a lot of that comes from managing pitch count myself and not falling behind in counts.”
Jake Bird took over for Cruz in the seventh inning and navigated around an E5 from Ryan McMahon to keep it a one-run game.
In the top of the seventh inning, Ben Rice lined a leadoff single right back up the middle; Stanton then reached on an E5 to put two aboard with nobody out. Jazz Chisholm Jr. legged out a fielder's choice to put runners at the corners with one gone. Amed Rosario pinch hit for McMahon and drove in Rice via a sacrifice fly to tie the game up at 1-1.
Bent Headrick came in relief for Bird in the bottom of the seventh and struck out the first batter he faced, as well as allowed a double and a single to put runners in scoring position. Headrick punched out Cal Raleigh, who hit 60 bombs last year, on a nasty splitter. Headrick handed the ball over to Camilo Doval and got Rodriguez to ground out to end the inning and keep the game tied.
Paul Blackburn replaced Doval on the mound and worked around a two-out walk to put together a scoreless frame.
Giancorlo Stanton ripped a one-out double in the top of the ninth, then moved up to third on a groundout from Jazz, but Roasrio struck out on three pitches to strand the go-ahead run at third.
Blackburn remained in the game for the bottom of the ninth and surrendered a walk-off RBI single to Raleigh for the Yankees' first loss of the season and the first run the bullpen has allowed.
“They found the holes with a couple of balls,” Boone said about Blackburn in the ninth. “They hit him sharp on the ground, but I thought he managed contact well, getting them on the ground. I actually thought he threw the ball well, you know, clean eighth there.”
The Yankees will look to bounce back tomorrow with Max Fried on the mound, facing off against Logan Gilbert. The first pitch is slated for 9:40 p.m. ET on the YES Network.
My thoughts on the game: First things first, I dont know why the hell Blackburn, who has done nothing but give up runs since the Yankees acquired him, was in there in a tie game in the eighth and ninth. Where was Tim Hill? I would have much rather seen him for the ninth. The Yankees offense did nearly nothing, mustering together one run and five hits, going 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left six runners on base. Castillo just shut the Yankees down tonight, but it was nice seeing the offense be so successful with the ABS system. Stanton has been great thus far this year with his fourth consecutive multi-hit game, hitting .500 (8-for-16) with a 1.250 OPS this year. Aside from Blackburn, the rest of the bullpen looked great, but I dont understand why Doval didn't come back out for the eighth after throwing just two pitches in the seventh. All good, you can't win them all, but this one definitely felt winnable. On to tomorrow, as the Yankees are still in a solid spot to win this series with Fried on the mound tomorrow and Cam Schlittler on Wednesday.
“I just did not want him to go to ups with him,” Boone said on why he took Doval out after throwing just two pitches. “I felt like that's kind of the game right there with Julio up. So I was going to take my shot right there and felt like I liked Blackburn behind him with a clean inning down through the bottom.”
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