CLEVELAND — The Yankees needed every arm, every bat, and nearly every player on their roster to get it done Monday night. It was messy. It was tense. And in the end, it was a win, the kind that can pull a banged-up team closer together. When the dust settled at Progressive Field, Cody Bellinger was once again standing at the center of it.
In a game that stretched to extra innings and tested the Yankees’ depth to its limit, Bellinger delivered the decisive blow to beat the Guardians 7-5 in 10 innings. It was a milestone of sorts, as the Yankees had not won an extra-inning game all season before Monday, improving to 1-3 in such games. Manager Aaron Boone summed up the night in five words.
“It wasn’t pretty, but it was gritty,” Boone said.
Bellinger comes through in the 10th
Here is the swing that decided it. With the score tied in the top of the 10th and Cleveland’s infield drawn in, Bellinger stepped in against Guardians reliever Shawn Armstrong and kept his approach simple. He did not try to do too much.
The matchup actually favored the Guardians on paper. Bellinger entered the night a far better hitter at home than on the road, carrying a 1.140 OPS at Yankee Stadium against a .591 mark away from the Bronx. None of that mattered with the game on the line. He drove a 95 mph fastback with two strikes through the hole between shortstop Brayan Rocchio and third baseman Jose Ramirez, scoring automatic runner Ali Sanchez and Ben Rice, who had been intentionally walked to load the bases. The two-run single handed the Yankees the lead they would not give back. Bellinger explained the mindset afterward.
“I wanted to get the job done, keep it simple and not try to do too much,” Bellinger said.
Boone was hardly surprised by his star’s poise in the moment, offering a simple explanation for the clutch hit.
“That’s why he’s Cody Bellinger,” Boone said with a chuckle.
Schuemann’s at-bat sets the stage
The heroics did not happen in a vacuum. Bellinger’s big hit was set up by an unlikely source, light-hitting utility man Max Schuemann, whose patient eye in the 10th proved just as important as the swing that followed.
Schuemann had entered the game in the eighth as a pinch-runner for Paul Goldschmidt. That move looked like it might backfire, since it meant Schuemann was hitting in extras instead of Goldschmidt and his 380 career home runs. Instead, Schuemann worked a gritty five-pitch walk to put the go-ahead run aboard. The final pitch was initially called a strike, but Schuemann immediately challenged it and began removing his batting gear in confidence as the automated ball-strike review played out on the video board. The call was overturned, keeping the Yankees rally alive.
Goldschmidt praised the discipline that made the rally possible.
“Just a great at-bat,” Goldschmidt said. “Those were some close pitches. He’s done a great job with that, whether it’s with us or in the Minors.”
Boone admitted the rookie’s certainty gave him a jolt of optimism in the dugout.
“That actually gave me a little comfort when he started doing that,” Boone said.
A back-and-forth slugfest
Before the late drama, the two teams traded haymakers all night. Goldschmidt got the Yankees rolling right away, crushing a two-run homer off Guardians starter Gavin Williams in the first inning after Rice reached base. The Yankees pushed the lead to 3-0 by the third.
Cleveland clawed back. The Guardians answered with three runs in the third, aided by a wild pitch and a two-out run-scoring error by Jose Caballero, who could not handle a short hop after the ball skipped through Will Warren’s legs. Ryan McMahon then put the Yankees back ahead, leading off the fifth with an opposite-field home run that just cleared the 19-foot wall in left. It was initially ruled a double before review confirmed the homer. It marked the second time in six days that the Yankees had tagged Williams, a Cy Young contender, for a pair of home runs.
The lead did not hold. Angel Martinez greeted reliever Paul Blackburn with a go-ahead two-run homer in the sixth to make it 5-4 Cleveland. The Yankees clawed even in the eighth, when Goldschmidt’s RBI fielder’s choice scored Trent Grisham to tie it at 5-5. New York nearly took the lead in that frame but was denied by one of the slickest defensive plays of the season, as Rocchio dropped to his knees, snared a high bounce up the middle, tagged the bag, and threw from one knee to nip the speedy Jazz Chisholm Jr. at first.
An all-hands effort on the mound
This was a true team victory, and nowhere was that clearer than in the bullpen. Warren needed 91 pitches to get through just 4 1/3 innings, which forced Boone to piece together the rest of the night out of the relief corps.
Boone used his entire bench and all but one of his eight relievers, with only Fernando Cruz left unused despite warming up in both the ninth and 10th. The group delivered. Two of the biggest outs came from lefties Ryan Yarbrough and Tim Hill, who each retired All-Star slugger Jose Ramirez with two runners on, ending the sixth and eighth innings. Hill entered the eighth with runners on first and second and one out and escaped unscathed.
David Bednar slammed the door as the seventh Yankees pitcher. The closer recorded the final five outs for the win, including three straight with the tying runs on base. Boone credited the collective effort.
“A lot of winning plays to get us to the finish line,” Boone said.
A gritty answer to the Judge question
The bigger picture made the win especially meaningful for the Yankees. Since Aaron Judge landed on the injured list last week with a stress fracture in his right rib, the central question has been how New York would replace his offense.
For one night, the Yankees answered it emphatically, scoring seven runs on nine hits and six walks without their captain. The victory had the feel of a playoff game, with Boone nearly emptying his bench and Guardians manager Stephen Vogt using all but two of his players. Warren said afterward that the grind brought the group closer.
“We’re already a tight-knit group, but I think a game like this brings us closer together,” Warren said.
Goldschmidt, who got the offense started with his first-inning homer, stressed that this is the formula the Yankees must lean on while their captain heals.
“We’re definitely going to have to win more games kind of like this, with a little bit more of a team effort,” Goldschmidt said. “The guy is probably the best hitter on the planet. He wins games for us by himself at times. We may have to do some things a little different like tonight, moving runners, stealing bases, stuff we’re already trying to do.”
The win improved the Yankees to 39-26 and showed they can grind out a tight one even shorthanded. Bellinger, who has emerged as the heartbeat of this lineup in Judge’s absence, framed the night as proof of what the team will need going forward.
The Tuesday game will have Yankees ace Gerrit Cole pitted against Cleveland’s Slade Cecconi.
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