Yankees' bottom of the order comes up big to sink Pirates, 9-4

The Yankees got big-time production from the bottom of the order and easily dispatched the hapless Pirates, 9-4, to spoil Opening Day in Pittsburgh.

Anthony Volpe, Trent Grisham, Jasson Dominguez, and Oswaldo Cabrera combined to go 6-for-7 with three walks and two hit batters for seven RBI… all in the game’s first four innings.

Max Fried produced 5.2 innings of effective work, allowing just one run and striking out six, Aaron Judge added the icing on the cake with a two-run blast in the seventh to give him six home runs on the year, and New York improved to 5-2. Pittsburgh fell to 2-6.

Here are the takeaways…

– Dominguez yanked a double into the right field corner after Grisham’s one-out walk in the second. They came home on Cabrera’s single to the gap in left-center to give the visitors a 2-0 lead off Pirates starter Mitch Keller.

The duo at the bottom of the lineup inflicted more damage with two outs in the third. After Volpe was hit by a pitch and Grisham rocketed an infield hit, Dominguez added an RBI with a broken-bat single to left (72.2 mph exit velocity). Cabrera tacked on another run with a ball hit just off the end of his bat (66 mph) for a single to left to make it 4-0.

A second-straight two-out rally produced another run in the fourth. Paul Goldschmidt singled, Austin Wells was hit by the pitch, and Volpe singled up the middle to plate the Yanks’ fifth run. Keller walked Grisham for a second time. Pirates lefty Joey Wentz came in and plated two runs by plunking Dominguez and walking Cabrera to make it 7-1.

Here’s how the bottom of the order finished the day:

• Volpe: 3-for-4 with an RBI, two runs, HBP, and a caught stealing.
• Grisham: 1-for-3 with two walks, two runs, and two strikeouts.
• Dominguez: 2-for-4 with two RBI, one run, a HBP, and a strikeout.
• Cabrera: 3-for-3 with four RBI and a walk.

– Fried needed nine pitches in a 1-2-3 first, but Joey Bart and one-time Yank Andrew McCutchen singled to start the second. But a pair of soft grounders and a flyout kept the Buccos off the board. The left-hander hung a 0-1 curveball to Bryan Reynolds with two down in the third, and the Pirates DH didn’t miss for a homer into the first row of seats in left. After walking Oneil Cruz, Fried nabbed his first strikeout on his 54th pitch of the day to close the inning.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa reached on an infield hit to start the fifth, but with one out, the left-hander picked off the ex-Yank with a fine move before tallying his fourth strikeout to end the inning. Fried saved his best for last, striking out the first two he saw in the sixth before McCutchen’s infield hit on a slow roller to third chased the starter. (McCutchen, 38, went 3-for-3 off Fried.) 

The final line of his second start of the year: 5.2 innings, six hits, one run, one walk, and six strikeouts on 98 pitches (62 strikes)

– Judge had Yankee fans holding their breath when he tangled with the right field wall in the bottom of the first. The slugger’s left shoulder bore the brunt of it when he made a leaping, awkward grab on Ke’Bryan Hayes’ liner.

After walking his first time up, Judge got a chance with two men on and one out in the second, but swung through a 95.6 mph fastball that was over the plate and thigh-high. He went down on three pitches, looking at a sinker that just caught the outside corner in the fourth. 

Judge struck in his fifth at-bat, clobbering a first-pitch two-run home run off one-time Yank Tim Mayza. The middle-middle sinker was smashed (106.7 mph, 403 feet) to center for his sixth dinger and 17th RBI of the year. He is now the first player in MLB history to produce those numbers in his team’s first seven games. Friday was also his 1,000th big league game, his 321 homers are the most by a player in history in that span. (Ryan Howard’s 279 dingers are the second-most.)

The right fielder added a running grab over his shoulder on the warning track in the eighth. He finished 1-for-5 with a walk and three strikeouts.

– Out of the bullpen, Fernando Cruz got the final out of the sixth but allowed a leadoff double in the seventh, a bloop one-out single to Kiner-Falefa before Hayes smacked a three-run homer over the short-porch to left to make it 9-4.

Brent Headrick added two strikeouts and a walk in scoreless 1.2 innings. Back off the paternity list, Devin Williams kicked off the rust with a scoreless ninth working around a two-out walk needing 18 pitches (9 strikes).

– The Yanks had some tough luck with two on and nobody out in the first as Jazz Chisholm Jr. got rung up by on a 2-2 slider that looked below the zone in the first. Chisholm Jr. wasn’t pleased about the call and immediately had a short face-to-face with home plate umpire Tom Hanahan. Goldschmidt then went down looking at a fastball that was well off the plate. A tough break for the Yanks, who had two on and nobody out.

Chisholm Jr. went on to finish 0-for-5 with two strikeouts. Goldschmidt rebounded from the bad call to finish the day 2-for-5.

Highlights

What’s next

The two sides tangle for the second game of the series on Saturday, with righty Marcus Stroman starting for New York and lefty Bailey Falter for Pittsburgh in the 4:05 p.m. start.

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