Francisco Lindor homered in the eighth inning off Dellin Betances to lift the Indians to a 4-3 victory over the Yankees on Sunday at Yankee Stadium. Battling from behind, the Yanks had tied the game in the seventh. The Indians leave New York having taken three of the four-game set, and the Yankees fell a half-game behind the Blue Jays in the American League East after Toronto’s 12-5 victory over the Angels.
“He’s a good hitter,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of Lindor. “Especially against that guy, [when] lefties’ OPS was like .330 or something absurd. He has bat speed from both sides of the plate and he doesn’t stop playing. That was obviously a huge lift for us.”
Entering Sunday’s game, Betances held left-handed batters to a .342 OPS with no home runs.
“Every once in a while, it’s going to happen. We’re so used to seeing him be so good that we’re always shocked when things just don’t go boom, boom, boom,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “And today, it didn’t. He got the 3-2 count and he left the fastball up and Lindor jumped on it.”
Carlos Santana drove a two-run homer to left-center field, scoring Mike Aviles, to put the Tribe ahead quickly in the first. In the third, a throwing error by catcher Yan Gomes allowed Jacoby Ellsbury to score to make it 2-1. The Indians added another run in the fifth when Abraham Almonte worked an RBI walk, and they kept the 3-1 lead until the seventh. The Yanks tied it when Carlos Beltran sent a ground-rule double to left field that drove in Ellsbury and Stephen Drew. The Yankees didn’t have an answer for Lindor’s homer.
CC Sabathia exited with right knee pain after 2 2/3 innings, allowing four hits, two earned runs and four walks. Trevor Bauer threw 6 1/3 innings of two-hit, two-run ball. He struck out seven and walked six, but limited the damage along the way. To seal the win, Indians closer Cody Allen turned in a four-out save (his 26th save of the year).
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