Yankees rally for 4 runs after throwing error in 9th, beat Pirates

Ji Hwan Bae drove in the game-tying run for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but he couldn’t get the image out of his head of his line drive hitting New York Yankees pitcher Anthony Misiewicz in the face.

A scary scene in the sixth inning that had Bae in shock only got worse when the the rookie second baseman threw away a chance to turn a game-ending double play in the top of the ninth.

The Yankees took advantage of Bae’s error to rally for four runs and pull off a 7-5 win Friday night before 31,534 on MLB’s Roberto Clemente Day at PNC Park.

“It’s a tough loss,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “It’s something that our guys have to learn and continue to go. That is a tough one because we battled back. We did a lot of good things. We just have to finish games like that.”

The Pirates had a 5-3 lead entering the ninth inning, but All-Star closer David Bednar was unavailable after throwing 40 pitches in save situations the previous two days against the Washington Nationals.

They turned to righty Colin Holderman, who gave up back-to-back singles to DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge and walked Gleyber Torres to load the bases with no outs. Holderman got Giancarlo Stanton to pop out in foul territory, as first baseman Alfonso Rivas leaned over the railing in the Yankees dugout to make the catch.

Estevan Florial worked a full-count walk to score LeMahieu and cut the Pirates’ lead to one run, but Anthony Volpe grounded into what appeared to be a game-ending double play. Instead, Bae’s throw from second skipped past Rivas for an error, allowing Judge to score the tying run and Torres the go-ahead run. Oswaldo Cabrera singled to score Volpe to give the Yankees a two-run lead.

“I think I was in a little rush, trying to turn it and throw as soon as possible,” Bae said. “That was the key, I think. I felt like I’ve got to slow down at that point.”

Bae also was a central figure in the previous turning point.

With runners on first and second, Bae lined a 1-2 curveball at an exit velocity of 100.6 mph that skimmed off the glove of Misiewicz and hit him flush on the left side of the face.

Bae’s single scored Miguel Andujar to tie the game, but Misiewicz dropped to the ground holding his face. All of the players and coaches on the field took a knee as a Yankees trainer tended to Misiewicz, who eventually got up and was taken off the field on a cart. Pirates first base coach Tarrik Brock tried to comfort Bae, who was shaken by the scene.

“I saw the ball going through to him and I saw his face, too, so I got a little bit of shock,” Bae said. “I was just feeling really sorry about him. It was an accident. Nothing we can do. Just praying, watching him. … The image was on my mind. I tried to forget about it. I really tried to forget.”

The Yankees turned to righty Zach McAllister, but he hit Bryan Reynolds with his first pitch to load the bases for Ke’Bryan Hayes, who hit a chopper over the mound and under the glove of Torres at second base to score Joshua Palacios and Bae for a 5-3 Pirates lead.

“It’s extremely challenging,” Shelton said. “In that inning we end up taking the lead, but in the back of your mind you’re thinking about a player. You’re thinking about a human being.”

For all of the fanfare surrounding the Clemente Day celebration, the game got off to a slow start. Pirates right-hander Johan Oviedo survived a 30-pitch first inning that saw him strike out LeMahieu — both on full-count sliders — then walk Torres and Stanton before getting Florial to pop up to third.

Yankees ace Gerrit Cole made his first start at PNC Park since Sept. 23, 2017, when he earned the victory in an 11-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals in his last home game for the Pirates before being traded to the Houston Astros in January 2018.

Cole walked the first two batters he faced, Bae and Reynolds, before Hayes singled to right to load the bases. Jack Suwinski hit a fly ball that carried to left-center for a sacrifice fly that scored Bae for a 1-0 lead.

The Yankees tied it in the second, when Anthony Volpe led off with a double to left-center, advanced to third on Oswald Peraza’s groundout to short and scored on Ben Rortvedt’s single to right to make it 1-1.

In the bottom of the second, Liover Peguero singled to left and scored from second on Reynolds’ single to right for a 2-1 Pirates lead. Cole, who threw 51 pitches through the first two innings, struck out Suwinski to strand two runners.

Oviedo retired nine of the final 11 batters he faced to allow one run on four hits and five walks while striking out seven in five innings before being replaced by Thomas Hatch in the sixth.

Hatch gave up a two-out single to Oswaldo Cabrera and walked Rortvedt before LeMahieu singled to right to drive in Cabrera to tie the game at 2-2, and Aaron Judge hit a sharp grounder up the middle to score Rortvedt for a 3-2 Yankees lead.

Cole gave up two runs on six hits and three walks with four strikeouts over five innings. Colin Selby and Carmen Mlodzinski pitched clean innings in the seventh and eighth for the Pirates before they turned to Holderman to protect the two-run lead in the ninth.

“All I wanna do is win, so walking away with a loss hurts,” Holderman said. “Shouldn’t have been in that situation to begin with. Some balls they took up the middle, some walks. I put myself in that situation.

“Teams that have experience, that’s what they do. When you get the momentum, all that matters is what you do with it. It goes back and forth the whole game. They ended with it. They won.”