{"id":854053,"date":"2026-09-20T06:18:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T06:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/854053\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T06:18:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T06:18:18","slug":"pavin-smiths-2-run-game-winning-homer-lifts-d-backs-over-yankees-5-3-helps-slim-playoff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/854053\/","title":{"rendered":"Pavin Smith’s 2-run, game-winning homer lifts D-backs over Yankees 5-3, helps slim playoff hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHOENIX — – Pavin Smith<\/a> hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning to lift the Arizona Diamondbacks<\/a> over the New York Yankees<\/a> 5-3 on Saturday night, giving the D-backs’ slim playoff hopes a boost.<\/p>\n

Ildemaro Vargas<\/a> started the ninth with a walk, winning an ABS challenge on a full-count pitch initially called a strike. After Jordan Lawlar<\/a> struck out, Smith pinch hit and drove a cutter from Michael Fulmer<\/a> (0-1) into the right-field seats.<\/p>\n

Arizona pulled within four games of Philadelphia for the final NL wild card with seven games remaining, snapping a three-game losing streak on a night the franchise celebrated the 25th anniversary of its 2001 World Series win over the Yankees.<\/p>\n

Juan Morillo<\/a> (1-1) pitched 1 1\/3 hitless innings. D-backs right-hander Brandon Pfaadt<\/a> gave up one run on four hits and a walk over 4 1\/3 innings, striking out three.<\/p>\n

New York’s 11 walk-off losses are one behind San Francisco, which has the most in the major leagues.<\/p>\n

New York ace Cam Schlittler<\/a> gave up three runs – but only one earned – over six innings. The right-hander allowed three hits and three walks, striking out six and lowering his ERA to 1.94.<\/p>\n

Schlitter’s 24 starts with one or no earned runs this year is one shy of the record in the live-ball era since 1920, set by Sandy Koufax in 1963, according to Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n

The All-Star didn’t allow a hit until the fifth inning when Nolan Arenado<\/a> lined a one-out single into left field. The right-hander then made a costly error on Tim Tawa<\/a>‘s sacrifice bunt attempt, dropping the ball as he tried to throw to first. Jordan Lawlar capitalized on the miscue with a two-out triple into the left-center field gap for a 2-1 lead.<\/p>\n

Austin Wells<\/a> and Heliot Ramos<\/a> hit solo homers off Kevin Ginkel<\/a> in the sixth to push the Yankees ahead 3-2.<\/p>\n

Corbin Carroll<\/a> hit a sacrifice fly in the bottom half but Schlittler limited damage by striking out Arenado and Tawa to end the threat.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

1. Arizona RHP Corbin Burnes<\/a> (0-0, 5.87 ERA) and Yankees RHP Will Warren<\/a> (10-6, 3.89) start Sunday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

See AP’s full MLB coverage here<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX — – Pavin Smith hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning to lift the Arizona Diamondbacks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[360686,2317,352,363,369,99],"class_list":["post-854053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-360686","tag-arizona-diamondbacks","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}