Aaron Judge hits 60th homer as Yankees top Pirates on Giancarlo Stanton walk-off slam
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On a night New York Yankees fans came to see Aaron Judge chase home run history, they got that and so much more.
Judge hit his 60th home run to spark a Yankees rally from a four-run deficit in the bottom of the ninth against Wil Crowe, winning on a walk-off grand slam by Giancarlo Stanton for a 9-8 victory over the Pirates on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Judge hit a 430-foot blast to left-center on Crowe’s 3-1 sinker to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning for No. 60, matching Babe Ruth’s mark in 1927 for second-most in a single season. Judge is now one homer shy of tying Roger Maris’ AL-record 61 in 1961, which stood as the major league single-season record until 1998.
“I’m not going to walk him. We were up four. I’m going to attack him,” Crowe said. “He’s the best hitter in baseball right now but, for me, I can’t put him on. I’ve got to go after him. That’s what I was trying to do. I just made a bad pitch.
“I threw it right down the middle, started away. I was just trying to go in. Who knows what he does if I throw it six inches farther inside? I was just trying to go after guys, especially up four at that point. He put a good swing on a bad pitch and did what he’s supposed to do.”
After Judge’s historic homer cut the Yankees’ deficit to 8-5, Anthony Rizzo doubled to center, Gleyber Torres drew a walk and Josh Donaldson singled to right to load the bases. Stanton, who struck out in his previous three at-bats, crushed a 2-2 changeup 410 feet at a 118-mph exit velocity to left field.
“We gave up the solo homer, which is fine, but then after that, we’ve got to put the ball on the plate,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “We can’t walk a guy. And we have to execute pitches, and we didn’t. You cannot leave the ball in the middle of the plate. This is one of the best lineups in baseball. We left the ball in the middle of the plate and because of it, we ended up paying for it.”
It was another devastating loss for the Pirates, who have dropped five consecutive after getting swept in four games by the New York Mets.
Pirates center fielder Bryan Reynolds matched his career high with four hits, including a game-tying home run to the second deck in right field in the seventh inning and a single to score the go-ahead run in the eighth. Rodolfo Castro followed with a three-run homer for an 8-4 lead.
The Pirates got an early lead when they loaded the bases against Yankees lefty Nestor Cortes in the fourth inning, as Oneil Cruz followed back-to-back singles by Diego Castillo and Kevin Newman by drawing a full-count walk. Greg Allen drove an 0-2 fastball 360 feet to Oswaldo Cabrera at the left field fence for a sacrifice fly to score Castillo for a 1-0 lead.
Making his second start, rookie right-hander Luis Ortiz didn’t allow a hit until the bottom of the fourth, when Torres singled to right against the shift. Ortiz got Donaldson swinging at a slider and froze Stanton with a 99.7-mph fastball for a called third strike.
The Yankees took advantage of an error in center field for a two-run fifth, after Reynolds almost collided with right fielder Diego Castillo and dropped a fly ball that bounced off his glove at the warning track and allowed Cabrera to reach third.
“It’s Bryan’s ball,” Shelton said. “Bryan was calling for it and (Castillo) just got too close to him.”
Making his Yankees debut after being acquired from St. Louis at the trade deadline, Harrison Bader singled to left to score Cabrera to tie the game at 1-1. Jose Trevino dropped a one-out single in front of a sliding Reynolds in shallow center, and Bader beat the throw to the plate for a 2-1 Yankees lead.
Ortiz walked Judge but got Rizzo to pop out to Ke’Bryan Hayes, who then made a beautiful backhand stop on a sharp grounder down the third base line to get Torres out to end the inning.
Cruz pitched 9⅔ scoreless innings before allowing his first runs – one unearned, one earned – and finished with five strikeouts, three hits and two walks on 74 pitches in five innings. He topped 99 mph 11 times – compared to the 26 in his debut – touched 100 mph twice and averaged 98.5 mph on his four-seamer, which drew 13 called strikes and whiffs.
“It was another positive sign,” Shelton said. “There’s not very many bigger stages than this, especially with the situation they’re in — with it being September, they’re in a pennant race and what Judge is doing — so I was really pleased with how he threw the ball.”
After pinch hitter Jack Suwinski singled to start the sixth – and snap an 0-for-24 funk over the past eight games – and Cruz drew his third walk, the Pirates took a 3-2 lead in the sixth on Jason Delay’s two-run double to left-center.
The Yankees regained the lead in the bottom of the sixth when Bader hit a two-run single off Duane Underwood Jr. to make it 4-3. Isiah Kiner-Falefa reached on an error by Cruz at shortstop and Trevino singled to center to load the bases, but Underwood escaped by getting Judge swinging at a 3-2 cutter high and inside and Rizzo to ground out to first.
Reynolds led off the seventh by hitting Lou Trivino’s first-pitch fastball 424 feet for his 24th home run, matching his career best from last season, to tie the game at 4-4. The Pirates had a chance to take the lead but Cruz struck out swinging at a full-count changeup with runners on second and third to end the frame.
Delay drew a one-out, four-pitch walk in the eighth, then reached third when Rizzo fielded a Hayes bouncer to first and the throw to second ricocheted off the Pirates catcher. Reynolds singled through the left side to score Delay to make it 5-4, and Castro sent a Clay Holmes sinker 371 feet to right field for his 11th homer to stretch the lead to four.
But with All-Star closer David Bednar finishing a rehabilitation assignment in Indianapolis, the Pirates turned to Crowe. He blew the lead by giving up five runs on a walk and four hits, including Judge’s solo shot and Stanton’s walk-off slam.
“It’s not the greatest feeling, especially right now because I blew the game for the guys,” Crowe said. “It would’ve been nice to get a win, but I learn from it and take what I can from it. We move forward, go on and keep adjusting. That’s all I can do.”