WASHINGTON \u2014 For seven innings Saturday afternoon, the Yankees lineup barely made a peep.<\/p>\n
Then in the eighth, they added to their recent collection of stirring rallies \u2014 joining the third inning Thursday against the Rays and the ninth inning Friday against the Nationals \u2014 to capture a third straight victory.<\/p>\n
Ryan McMahon, Trent Grisham and Paul Goldschmidt all homered in the eighth inning to turn a two-run deficit into a 4-2 win over the Nationals at muggy Nationals Park.<\/p>\n
Leaning into the flair for the dramatic for a second straight day, the Yankees (53-42) took advantage of a terrible Washington bullpen \u2014 this was its 27th blown save \u2014 and got more contributions from all corners of the roster as they try to fully snap out of their recent funk and end the first half on a high note, with a chance Sunday for a sweep.<\/p>\n
Ryan McMahon (r.) celebrates after hitting a home run July 11. AP Photo\/Nick Wass<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it just doubles down on the belief for everybody,\u201d Grisham said. \u201cYou have a tough week, when you do this every day, it can seem way bleaker than it is at times, especially in this city. So it just puts everybody back at ease and reminds everybody, \u2018Oh yeah, we got this. We got a bunch of good players.\u2019 I think it just puts everybody at ease and reminds everybody of who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a day when it was a grind for Cam Schlittler, he still gave the Yankees a chance to win by giving up two runs, on a pair of solo homers in the first inning, across 6 \u00b2\/\u2083 innings.<\/p>\n
Still, they trailed 2-0 entering the eighth inning before finally coming alive.<\/p>\n
With one out, Ryan McMahon \u2014 who delivered the game-changing 12-pitch at-bat for an RBI double in Thursday\u2019s win at Tampa Bay \u2014 provided another spark, belting a solo home run off Orlando Ribalta to pull the Yankees within 2-1.<\/p>\n
Ben Rice singles during the Yankees\u2019 July 11 win. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
\u201cGot to two strikes kind of quick, so just trying to choke-and-poke one,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cHe put one in a good spot and I got to it pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then, after Ben Rice drew a walk to reach base for the fourth time, the Nationals countered by bringing in former Yankees prospect Clayton Beeter. <\/p>\n
Grisham greeted him by clobbering a two-run shot to the second deck in right field that put the Yankees ahead 3-2.<\/p>\n
Cam Schlittler reacts after allowing a home run during the Yankees\u2019 July 11 win over the Nationals. Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Goldschmidt, who snapped out of an 0-for-34 skid Friday night, then made it back-to-back by drilling a home run to left field for the insurance run.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s electric to come back,\u201d Schlittler said. \u201cWe\u2019re playing great baseball in the later innings, and that\u2019s what it takes to win championships.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tYankees Merch Shop\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\tNew York Post receives revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and when you make a purchase.\t\t<\/p>\n
It was McMahon\u2019s first home run since June 18, Grisham\u2019s first since July 3 and Goldschmidt\u2019s first since June 24.<\/p>\n
Fernando Cruz breezed through a seven-pitch bottom of the eighth before David Bednar \u2014 who threw two innings to finish off Friday night\u2019s win but had little doubt that he would be available once he arrived at the park Saturday \u2014 closed it out with a scoreless ninth.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing through that 10-day period where it was really hard, we\u2019ve had some really good feel-good wins where a lot of people have been involved,\u201d said Aaron Boone, who recorded his 750th career victory as a manager. \u201cLot of different contributions whether it\u2019s guys in the pen, guys off the bench in some cases, whether it\u2019s our central figures. That always feels good.\u201d<\/p>\n
It did not always look rosy for the Yankees on Saturday, as they spent most of the day being shut down by the Nationals, including bulk reliever Miles Mikolas, who entered the day with a 5.78 ERA in 19 games but tossed four shutout innings.<\/p>\n
But they saved their best for last, keeping the good vibes alive after what had been a brutal few weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what\u2019s crazy about baseball,\u201d McMahon said. \u201cWe feel good right now, obviously won a couple games late, that always boosts momentum. You just got to ride the waves of the season, can\u2019t get too high, can\u2019t get too low, just got to keep showing up and doing your job.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 For seven innings Saturday afternoon, the Yankees lineup barely made a peep. Then in the eighth,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[32358,20,9,11,10,321,51140,36062,319,35514],"class_list":["post-293622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-cam-schlittler","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-paul-goldschmidt","tag-ryan-mcmahon","tag-sports","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}