Michael Brantley delivered a walk-off single off Branden Pinder in the bottom of the 16th inning, driving home Jose Ramirez as the Indians defeated the Yankees, 5-4, on Tuesday night at Progressive Field.
Cleveland’s late walk-off came after the Tribe handed Andrew Miller his first blown save of the season in the 10th, when Carlos Santana lifted a sacrifice fly and Yan Gomes lined a run-scoring single to tie the game. New York had grabbed the lead in the top half of the 10th on pinch-hitter Chase Headley’s two-run single off Bryan Shaw.
The five-hour, four-minute affair was the fourth-longest game in terms of innings this season in the Majors. The Yankees participated in the longest, a 19-inning loss to the Red Sox on April 10. New York has lost four straight, seeing its lead in the American League East trimmed to just a half-game over the surging Blue Jays.
“Every loss right now is painful,” first baseman Mark Teixeira said. “We just haven’t been swinging the bats. We went through an incredible stretch where it seemed like every night we were scoring 10 runs, and now it’s the opposite. We need to swing our way out of it.”
Indians starter Carlos Carrasco limited the Yankees to four hits over eight dominant innings, walking none and striking out eight, but Stephen Drew hit a sixth-inning solo homer and Carlos Beltran connected for a game-tying blast in the eighth as Carrasco settled for a no-decision.
“He was very good,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “It seemed like a long time ago. He gave up the solo homer to Drew, but the other one to Beltran was actually a pretty good pitch. When your good hitters get later in the game and they’ve seen a number of pitches, they get more dangerous. But he was really good. To the point that I thought about letting him go out for the ninth, but I just thought that was good enough.”
The Indians scored twice off rookie starter Luis Severino, who settled down and gave the Yankees six solid innings in his second Major League effort. Santana notched a first-inning RBI single and Ramirez added a run-scoring hit in the second off Severino, who has been rated as the Yanks’ top prospect by MLBPipeline.com.
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