The New York Yankees secured a 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Rays in an 11-inning game at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Ryan McMahon, who recently joined the Yankees, delivered the game-winning single with a deep fly ball, bringing home Jazz Chisholm Jr. for the decisive run.
“One thing about this team — and I’ve seen it plenty of times — they’re never out of a game,” McMahon said. “And I think we showed that tonight. We fought our way back after not playing great for the first couple of innings.”
Chisholm earlier forced a balk from Rays pitcher Kevin Kelly by taking an aggressive lead off second base. After scoring, he joined teammates in celebrating their fourth walk-off win of the season.
“It’s a huge win,” said Cody Bellinger. “Baseball wins come in a bunch of different ways. And this was a good one.”
The contest remained close through seven innings before both teams exchanged leads multiple times late in the game. Trent Grisham tied it with a home run in the eighth inning, and Giancarlo Stanton followed with an RBI single to give New York a brief advantage.
In the ninth inning, Josh Lowe hit a two-run homer off Devin Williams to put Tampa Bay ahead again. Anthony Volpe, who had just committed his third error in two nights, responded by hitting his 16th home run to tie it once more.
Austin Wells then singled but was involved in an unusual double play when he mistakenly thought there were three outs after Grisham’s bunt and was tagged out while walking toward the dugout.
“Very embarrassed and disappointed, for sure,” Wells said. “You let the guys down when you do that. You give away an out like that in a big spot. … I think I was just being an idiot.”
Manager Aaron Boone commented: “That obviously can’t happen. So you make sure with the base coaches we’re saying the right things — go through the pitcher, their move, time to the plate, number of outs. So what do you say? It can’t happen.”
Tampa Bay regained control in extra innings on Jonathan Aranda’s sacrifice fly before Jasson Domínguez made a key catch at left field wall to limit further damage.
“That was a tough fly ball, but I’ve been working with my coaches almost every day,” Domínguez said. “You work on those plays. That helped me the most.”
Bellinger then tripled to right-center field to bring home another tying run for New York.
“I hustled out of the box there and saw it had a chance to split the gap,” Bellinger said.
Tim Hill pitched scoreless relief for New York despite having been scheduled for rest that night due to bullpen workload concerns.
“Sometimes these extra-inning games can be defeating if you don’t win — you’ve just expended all these resources,” Hill said. “But if you get it, it’s great.”
Will Warren started for New York and allowed one run over six innings before turning things over to relievers Williams and Luke Weaver as both teams used several pitchers during extended play.
So much happened during this matchup that Warren joked afterward he nearly forgot he had pitched at all but expressed satisfaction with his performance against Tampa Bay’s lineup led by starter Zack Littell—who threw five shutout innings before news broke postgame that he would be traded from Tampa Bay as part of a three-team deal involving Cincinnati and Los Angeles.
“It was a big back-and-forth game,” McMahon said. “I can’t overstate how clutch Belli was down that stretch. Trent with the big homer for us. There were a lot of really good things done by guys, and then I was just the one that came through at the end.”
