Yankees' Offense Wakes Up in Series-Opening Win Over Twins

MINNEAPOLIS — Scoring runs and stringing hits together hasn't come easy for the Yankees' offense this season. In Minneapolis on Tuesday night, New York manufactured a rally just in the nick of time and erupted for some insurance. 

With the game tied at three runs apiece, the Yankees started the eighth inning with back-to-back singles. From there, a sacrifice bunt and one fielder's choice after another paved the way to a critical two-run inning.

That would've been enough run support for the bullpen, but Gary Sánchez and Miguel Andújar both added mammoth home runs in the top of the ninth, more than enough of a cushion for New York to cruise to a 8-4 victory. 

When Minnesota brought lefty Taylor Rogers in from the bullpen to start the eighth, the Yankees countered with Clint Frazier off the bench. Frazier promptly slapped a leadoff single, followed by another base hit from Andújar. 

After a perfectly-placed bunt from Brett Gardner, pinch-runner Tyler Wade scampered home from third to give the Yankees the lead on a grounder to second base. Jorge Polanco tried to throw Wade out at the plate, but the speedster would've beat the throw even if it was on target. 

Next, Aaron Judge bounced another ball on the ground to the right side, allowing Andújar to score from third. 

Yankees starter Jordan Montgomery held the Twins to three runs over 5.2 innings. If his final pitch wasn't a two-out RBI double—off the bat of ex-Yankee Rob Refnsyder—to tie the game in the sixth, Montgomery would've been in line for the victory.

From there, Jonathan Loaisiga, Chad Green and Wandy Peralta recorded the final 10 outs. 

Entering play on Tuesday, the Yankees had won just three games over their last 13. The offense had put more than five runs on the board only once in their last 18. That's without mentioning the historic three-game sweep by the Red Sox last weekend, the first at Yankee Stadium in a decade. 

To manager Aaron Boone, situational hitting, mixed in with some hard contact and quality at-bats throughout were "critical" in the outburst.

"For us this year, obviously, we haven't been hitting homers as much as we normally do, or putting up crooked numbers as much as we do," he said. "So sometimes it takes little things in a game to win a ballgame and tonight's that kind of game where everyone kind of contributed in different ways."

DJ LeMahieu, who had two of New York's 14 hits, concurred with his skipper. 

"That's the kind of offense that we've been waiting for for a little while," LeMahieu said. "We've shown flashes of it, but tonight was a complete offensive game for us and we just need to keep it rolling."

Even if this team has a long way to go, Boone said that a win like this can help the team loosen up and start playing better baseball. For a fourth-place team after 60 games, that's exactly what this team needs to do. 

"Playing well has a way of doing that," Boone said. "There's no question coming off the series and the finish to the homestand that we had into the off day for the guys come out and ... claw their way back in and fight, I thought that compete was really good tonight."

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