Yankees narrowly avoid epic collapse to win slugfest over Twins
MINNEAPOLIS — Nobody offers the Yankees a get-right game quite like the Twins.That is what made Monday’s shutout of the Yankees so shocking.It is also what made Tuesday’s game so familiar, at least until the perennial punching bags began to punch back.
Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Greg Joyce about the inside buzz on the Yankees.The teams returned to their regularly scheduled programming for a few innings, with the Yankees beating up on the Twins early before hanging on for dear life late in a 10-9 win at Target Field.A 10-1 lead through four innings became 10-8 by the sixth inning, as Cam Schlittler and Ryan Yarbrough flirted with potential disaster.
Mark Leiter Jr.and Devin Williams restored order to the game, combining to throw 2 ²/₃ shutout innings to bridge the gap to David Bednar, who gave up a solo shot in the ninth before finishing off the save.The win allowed the Yankees (84-67) to keep pace in the division race with the Blue Jays, who remained five games up, own the tiebreaker and are still in the driver’s seat to claim the AL East with 11 games to play.
More importantly, the Yankees remained a game ahead of the surging Mariners for the top AL wild-card spot while moving two games ahead of the Red Sox.A night after the Yankees were shut out and struck out 14 times against these same lowly Twins (66-85), they racked up 16 hits, as every batter in the starting lineup had at least one hit by the fourth inning.The Yankees had a handful of hitters who had cooled off of late, but the Twins provided a human thawing.Anthony Volpe, starting for the first time in a week after slumping again and getting a cortisone injection in his left shoulder, enjoyed a strong return with a 2-for-4 effort.
He roped a double to the right-center field gap in the second inning, worked a walk in the third inning and then shot an RBI single through the right side in the fourth.Giancarlo Stanton, who came into...