The Yankees will have to wait a little bit longer to lock up the No. 1 seed in the American League as they dropped their second consecutive game to the Pittsburgh Pirates 9-4 on Saturday.
Luis Gil allowed four home runs in his start which was a season high, and the Yankees could not overcome the large lead the Pirates built. But all the storylines of the game will surround Anthony Rizzo, who, in the seventh inning, took a foul ball to the hand, which fractured the area between his right fourth and fifth finger.
“We’ll see what we have as the week moves forward,” Boone said. “It doesn’t totally rule
him out. It’s something that’s a pain tolerance thing. So we’ll see as the days unfold here.”
All eyes were on two of baseball's best rookie pitchers, with Luis Gil getting the start for
the Yankees and Paul Skenes getting the ball for the Pirates. And, with his girlfriend Livvy
Dunne in attendance, Skenes struck out Juan Soto and Aaron Judge in the first inning, and the Pirates added a run in the top half of the second when Yasmani Grandal hit his ninth homer of the year 347 feet down the line in right, giving the Bucs an early one-run advantage.
In the bottom half of the second, Skenes retired the side in order, including a strikeout on Jazz Chisholm that caught the inside black at 100 miles per hour.
Unfortunately for those in attendance, that marked the end of Skenes’ day and his season.
Skenes faced the minimum in two innings, striking out three of them. He was relieved by Mike Burrows, who made his Major League debut in the contest. Burrows retired the first three batters he faced, and the first three innings of the game ended with the Pirates leading 1-0. Nick Gonzalez doubled the Pirates lead in the top of the fourth, taking Luis Gil deep to left.
One inning later, the Pirates lead was doubled yet again when Billy Cook connected on a
two-run home run to left, giving the Pirates a commanding 4-0 lead after the top of the fifth. And despite a solo homer from Jazz Chisholm to cut the lead to 4-1, Gil allowed his fourth homer of the game to Jared Triolo, a two-run shot that gave the Pirates a 6-1 lead and ended
Gil’s night.
Gil finished the night tossing 5.2 innings, allowing six runs on six hits, with four of
those hits being home runs.
“The long ball got him,” Boone said. “Around that, I thought he was pretty good. His swing and miss was pretty efficient, but the long ball got him.”
In the bottom of the sixth, Burrows and David Bednar combined to walk three batters to
load the bases with only one out. Giancarlo Stanton drove in the Yankees’ second run of the game on an error by Pirates shortstop Nick Gonzalez. With the bases loaded and two outs, Chisholm struck out, stranding the bases loaded.
In the bottom of the seventh, the Yankees once again had men on base and were able to
cut into the Pirates’ lead. A Soto single made the score 6-3. However, Soto was thrown out
attempting to stretch the single into a double.
Even more worrisome for the Yankees was that Rizzo was hit on the right hand and did not return to the field after running the bases.
The Yankees tacked on another in the bottom of the eighth on a single by Chisholm, but
the Pirates answered with three in the top of the ninth, including a three-run homer by Nick
Yorke which put the finishing touches on a 9 to 4 victory.
