Alex Verdugo hit a go-ahead single in the seventh inning and made a sliding catch along the left-field line, helping the New York Yankees beat the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on Saturday night in their AL Division Series opener.
New York’s Gleyber Torres and Kansas City’s MJ Melendez both hit two-run homers in a game where the Royals lost leads of 1-0, 3-2, and 5-4, while the Yankees couldn’t hold onto leads of 2-1 and 4-3.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, this was the first postseason game with five lead changes. “What a game!” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Kansas City pitchers matched their season high by issuing eight walks, which allowed two runs in the fifth inning. The Yankees struggled with runners in scoring position, going 1 for 11 until Verdugo hit a single off losing pitcher Michael Lorenzen.
Verdugo’s hit brought home Jazz Chisholm Jr., who had singled to start the inning and stolen second base after a video review confirmed the call.
“I think we did have a really good argument that that should have been overturned,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.
Boone decided to start a struggling Verdugo in left field instead of rookie Jasson Domínguez, mainly because of his defensive skills.
“I feel like I’m pretty real with myself,” Verdugo said. “As in fans booing me, fans getting on me. I understand it. I was booing myself, too.” Verdugo had been in a slump, going 3 for 25 at the plate.
“I just kind of let it spiral out of control a little bit,” Verdugo said. “For me, it was just really leaning on my guys in the clubhouse. They all got my back.
They all know what kind of player I am and how I played throughout my whole career and just kept telling me, `Man, don’t let this season or this little glimpse make your whole year. You can make up for a lot of things in the playoffs.’”
With the Yankees down 3-2, Verdugo made a sliding catch on Michael Massey’s fly ball in the fourth inning, preventing two runners from scoring. The ball hit the edge of Verdugo’s glove and bounced off his chest before he caught it with his bare hand.
“Thank goodness it popped over to the left hand, so it all worked out,” he said.
Chisholm, who was playing third base for the first time this year after being traded from Miami in July, made three great defensive plays, two with help from first baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, who was starting because Anthony Rizzo had fractured fingers.
Four Yankees relief pitchers allowed only one unearned run over four innings after ace Gerrit Cole left the game, unhappy with how he performed. Clay Holmes, who lost his closer job last month, pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings to earn the win. Luke Weaver got four outs for the save in his first postseason game.
Yankees star Aaron Judge went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts, while Royals standout Bobby Witt Jr. was 0 for 5, arguing with plate umpire Adam Hamari after a called third strike in the ninth inning.
Juan Soto went 3 for 5 and threw out Salvador Perez in the second inning as he tried to score from second base on Melendez’s single to right field. Kansas City first baseman Yuli Gurriel also threw out runners at the plate on ground balls in the first and fifth innings.
After a day off between Games 1 and 2, the series between the top-ranked Yankees and the wild-card Royals will continue Monday night. These teams faced each other in four playoff series from 1976 to 1980, with the Yankees winning the first three and getting swept in the last.
Cole gave up four runs—three earned—and seven hits in five-plus innings. Royals starter Michael Wacha allowed three runs, four hits, and three walks in four-plus innings.
Tommy Pham hit a sacrifice fly in the second inning, and Torres put the Yankees ahead 2-1 in the third with a 339-foot home run that just cleared the right-field short porch.
Melendez’s two-run homer in the fourth gave Kansas City a 3-2 lead, but Royals pitchers issued four walks of seven pitches in the fifth, allowing runs to score when Angel Zerpa walked Austin Wells and John Schreiber walked Anthony Volpe.
This was the first time the Yankees had two bases-loaded walks in a postseason game since Bullet Joe Bush and Joe Dugan did it against the New York Giants’ Rosy Ryan in Game 6 of the 1923 World Series.
“They looked at a lot of pitches. We were close, but not good enough pitches to make them count,” Zerpa said through a translator.
Volpe’s throwing error at shortstop allowed pinch-hitter Garrett Hampson to hit a two-run single in the sixth inning that put the Royals ahead 5-4. Wells, who was in a 2-for-43 slump, tied the game in the bottom half with a two-out RBI single off Lorenzen.
