Verdugo keys Yanks’ win in nip-and-tuck Game 1
NEW YORK — Alex Verdugo hit a tiebreaking single in the seventh inning and saved at least one run with a sliding catch along the left-field line, boosting the New York Yankees over the Kansas City Royals 6-5 on Saturday night in their AL Division Series opener.
New York’s Gleyber Torres and Kansas City’s MJ Melendez hit two-run homers in a back-and-forth game in which the Royals wasted leads of 1-0, 3-2 and 5-4 and the Yankees failed to hold 2-1 and 4-3 margins. It was the first postseason game with five lead changes, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“What a game!” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Kansas City pitchers tied their season high with eight walks, forcing in a pair of runs in the fifth inning. The Yankees were just 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position before Verdugo lined a single off losing pitcher Michael Lorenzen.
Verdugo’s hit scored Jazz Chisholm Jr., who singled leading off and stole second on a play allowed to stand following a video review.
“I think we did have a really good argument that that should have been overturned,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said.
Boone started a slumping Verdugo in left over rookie Jasson Dominguez in a decision influenced by defense.
“I feel like I’m pretty real with myself,” Verdugo said. “As in fans booing me, fans getting on me. I understand it. I was booing myself, too.”
Verdugo entered in a 2-for-34 skid at the plate.
“I just kind of let it spiral out of control a little bit,” Verdugo said of the slump. “For me, it was just really leaning on my guys in the clubhouse. They all got my back. They all know what kind of player I am and how I played throughout my whole career and just kept telling me, ‘Man, don’t let this season or this little glimpse make your whole year. You can make up for a lot of things in the playoffs.'”
With the Yankees trailing 3-2, Verdugo made a sliding catch on Michael Massey‘s fourth-inning fly just inside the line to strand two runners. The ball hit Verdugo’s right wrist just below his glove and bounced off his chest before he grabbed it with his bare left hand.
“Thank goodness it popped over to the left hand, so it all worked out,” he said.
Chisholm, playing third base this year for the first time after the Yankees acquired him from Miami at the July trade deadline, made three fine defensive plays, two with the help of first baseman Oswaldo Cabrera, starting because of Anthony Rizzo‘s fractured fingers.
Four Yankees relievers combined to allow only one unearned run over four innings after ace Gerrit Cole came out, unhappy with his performance. Clay Holmes, dropped from his closer’s job last month, worked 1⅔ innings for the win. Luke Weaver got four straight outs for the save in his postseason debut.
Yankees star Aaron Judge went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and Royals standout Bobby Witt Jr. was 0-for-5, barking at plate umpire Adam Hamari after a called third strike in the ninth.
Juan Soto went 3-for-5 and threw out Salvador Perez in the second inning trying to score from second on Melendez’s single to right. Kansas City first baseman Yuli Gurriel threw out runners at the plate on grounders in the first and fifth.
After a day off between Games 1 and 2, the series between the AL-best Yankees and wild-card Royals resumes Monday night. These teams met in four playoffs from 1976 to 1980, with the Yankees winning the first three and getting swept in the last.
Cole allowed four runs — three earned — and seven hits in five-plus innings. Royals starter Michael Wacha gave up 3 runs, 4 hits and 3 walks in four-plus innings.
Tommy Pham hit a second-inning sacrifice fly, and Torres put the Yankees ahead 2-1 in the third with a 339-foot home run just over the right-field short porch.
Melendez’s two-run homer in the fourth gave Kansas City a 3-2 lead, but Royals pitchers issued four seven-pitch walks in the fifth, forcing in runs with walks by Angel Zerpa to Austin Wells and by John Schreiber to Anthony Volpe. The Yankees had not gotten a pair of bases-loaded walks in a postseason game since Bullet Joe Bush and Joe Dugan against the New York Giants’ Rosy Ryan in Game 6 of the 1923 World Series.
“They looked at a lot of pitches,” Zerpa said of the Yankees through an interpreter. “We were close, but not good enough pitches to make them count.”
Volpe’s throwing error at shortstop set up pinch-hitter Garrett Hampson‘s two-run, sixth-inning single through a drawn-in infield that put the Royals ahead 5-4. Wells’ two-out RBI single off Lorenzen tied the score in the bottom half.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
OTTAWA, Ontario — Danny Nelson scored the eventual game-winner in the third period and Trey Augustine made 38 saves, leading the United States to a 4-1 win over Canada on Tuesday night and into the top spot in Group A at the world junior hockey championship.
Cole Hutson and Cole Eiserman each had a goal and an assist for the Americans. Ryan Leonard scored into an empty-net.
Bradly Nadeau scored for Canada, which allowed three goals on seven American power plays. Carter George stopped 24 shots.
Canada finished third in the pool and will face Czechia in Thursday’s quarterfinals. The Americans face Switzerland.
“We’re not here to beat Canada tonight,” Augustine said. “We’re here to win a gold medal.”
The other matchups will have Group B winner Sweden take on Latvia, and Finland square off with Slovakia.
Canada and the U.S. played in the same building exactly 16 years to the day at the 2009 event, when John Tavares scored a memorable hat trick in Canada’s 7-4 comeback victory on New Year’s Eve. The Canadians went on to win a fifth straight gold.
“That’s something that’s storybook-like,” Eiserman said of beating Canada on home soil in the tournament’s marquee round-robin matchup. “Something that you’ve dreamt of.”
The teams met on New Year’s Eve for the first time since Dec. 31, 2016, when Canada picked up a 3-1 victory in Toronto. The U.S. got revenge less than a week later with a 5-4 shootout win in the title game in Montreal.
The Americans opened this under-20 tournament with a 10-4 win over Germany followed by a 5-1 victory over Latvia before losing to Finland 4-3 in overtime. Canada started with a 4-0 defeat of Finland before falling to Latvia 3-2 in a shootout and then rebounding to beat Germany 3-0.
The Canadians had a power play to start the third period while trailing 1-0 after Leonard took a roughing call at the end of the second. Nadeau blasted a one-timer for his first goal of the tournament off a feed from Brayden Yager at 1:58.
Nelson restored the U.S. lead at 4:22, taking a pass from Huston and beating George with his third goal.
The U.S. scored its third power-play goal of the game at 13:21 when Eiserman scored his second and put the game out of reach at 3-1 after a boarding penalty by Canada’s Easton Cowan.
Leonard scored into the empty net with 1:52 left in regulation to spark chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
George, who entered with consecutive shutouts that bookended the Latvia loss, saw his streak end at 133:02 on Tuesday’s first power play to silence the beer-chugging crowd at Canadian Tire Centre.
In the first period, Hutson took advantage of a failed Canadian clearing attempt on a U.S. power play and scored his second goal of the tournament.
Tempers flared later in the period when Canada’s Luca Pinelli and Zeev Buium of the U.S. went off for roughing and then jawed at each other in the penalty box.
Leonard hit another post for the Americans and Carson Rehkopf fired an effort that Augustine, who entered with an .879 save percentage in two starts, got enough of with his glove at the other end before tempers again boiled over at the buzzer.
In another Group A game, Finland beat Latvia 3-0 and finished second in the group. In Group B, Switzerland beat Kazakhstan 3-1 to secure a spot in the quarterfinal round. Also, Sweden completed a sweep of its four preliminary round games, beating Czechia 4-2 in another Group B game.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
New York Rangers star goaltender Igor Shesterkin has been placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury, an NHL source told ESPN on Tuesday.
The Rangers recalled NHL veteran Louis Domingue from the AHL Hartford Wolf Pack. Shesterkin’s backup, Jonathan Quick, is 5-4-0 in 12 games this season with a .907 save percentage and a 2.69 goals-against average.
Shesterkin stopped 21 of 25 shots in the Rangers’ 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers on Monday night. During that game, Panthers forward Sam Bennett was checked into Shesterkin’s upper body by Rangers defenseman Ryan Lindgren. Shesterkin was down on the ice briefly but didn’t leave the game.
Shesterkin, 29, is 11-15-1 in 27 games this season with a .906 save percentage and a 3.10 goals-against average. While the Rangers are 20th in goals against per game this season, Shesterkin is second among all goalies with 13 goals saved above replacement, according to Stathletes.
It has been an eventful month for Shesterkin. He signed a contract extension with the Rangers on Dec. 6 that makes him the highest-paid goalie in NHL history: an eight-year, $92 million deal that starts in the 2025-26 season. The 2022 Vezina Trophy winner is in the final year of a four-year deal with an average annual value of $5.66 million.
The injury to Shesterkin is the latest bit of adversity for the Rangers this season. They are 16-19-1 after 36 games, having lost four in a row and going 2-8-0 in their past 10. The Rangers were seven points out of a playoff spot entering Tuesday night.
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