The way the season has begun for the Yankees, one step back has been accompanied by two steps forward.
For the first time this season, they could not rely upon supreme pitching, the club’s historic run thwarted with Ryan Weathers and later Camilo Doval on the mound.
It did not matter. The Yankees turned to Giancarlo Stanton and a multi-pronged offensive attack that helped them score nine of the final 12 runs to seize a wild and ugly game from the Marlins.
The Yankees dug a four-run hole, climbed back on top, blew that lead and then surged back ahead on the back (and legs) of Stanton in a roller-coaster, 9-7 victory in The Bronx on Saturday night. The 44,150 shivering fans on hand were rewarded for not leaving early on a night when the wind chill (in the 30s) and early deficit (trailing 4-0 after 4 innings) made the notion appealing.
With the comeback, the Yankees (7-1) matched their best start through eight decisions in franchise history, just the second time in the past 23 years they have won seven of their first eight.
Victory No. 7 was created differently. Yankees pitching had allowed eight runs over the first seven games, matching the 2002 Giants and 1993 Braves for the fewest in MLB history.
Weathers then allowed three runs before the end of the second inning and did not escape the fourth. Doval allowed two more in a wayward, lead-costing eighth.
But the Yankees lineup — which was outhit 15-6 but drew 10 walks and scored creatively rather than emphatically — was the difference-maker.
“Cold, windy, behind early,” manager Aaron Boone would say, “and the quality of at-bat just never went away.”
The biggest moment belonged to Stanton, who watched Doval struggle in the top of the eighth and then stepped up with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the inning with the game tied.
Known for blasts, Stanton fought a seven-pitch battle against righty Michael Petersen before poking a single through the left side that plated the two go-ahead runs for a lead that would hold up.
The Yankees hope this season ends differently in part because they believe they will be less reliant on the long ball and can jump-start their offense using various means. Stanton — and his teammates — demonstrated as much during the comeback:
- In the fifth, the four-run deficit was cut in half when Aaron Judge singled and Cody Bellinger crushed a Max Meyer slider over the wall in right-center for a two-run shot.
- In the sixth, small ball and substitutions were the key. A pinch-hitting Paul Goldschmidt walked before José Caballero was drilled. Trent Grisham chopped an RBI single through the left side for one run before Judge snuck a single down the first-base line for another to tie it. Needing contact, the Yankees found it again with Bellinger, who lifted a fly ball to left that was just deep enough to score Grisham from third as he angled a slide and dragged his foot across home plate.
- Insurance arrived in the seventh in a fashion that the Yankees probably cannot count upon ever happening again. Stanton — whose last steal came in the pandemic season of 2020 — walked, took a lead, took a bigger lead as he was not being held on the base and then took off for a sneak-attack steal.
“Awesome,” Boone said.
“The boys were fired up,” Bellinger added.
“If they’re going to give it to me,” Stanton said, “I got to go get it.”
He moved to third on a groundout and then scored on a two-out passed ball, one of the slowest runners in baseball single-handedly manufacturing a run that made it 6-4.
That lead disappeared in the eighth, when Doval — who struggled last season after coming over from the Giants — allowed three hits that turned into two runs.
But further hiccups from Doval did not matter. Neither did a misplay from Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the ninth, which created more work for David Bednar (fourth save). Neither did the issues of Weathers, who let up three runs on six hits in 3 ²/₃ innings.
A Yankees offense that scored every which way made sure of that.
“It seems like everyone had a big at-bat tonight in some way, shape or form,” Boone said, “to allow us to score a bunch of runs, which obviously tonight we needed.”
