Carlos Santana hit a two-run homer with one out in the seventh inning as the Seattle Mariners overcame Aaron Judge’s major-league-leading 45th home run of the season and defeated the visiting New York Yankees 4-3 Wednesday afternoon.
Sam Haggerty also homered for Seattle and Kyle Higashioka went deep for the Yankees, who lost for the seventh time in their past eight games.
It was a quick turnaround for the teams after the Mariners won 1-0 in 13 innings Tuesday night in a game that finished at 11:18 p.m. on the West Coast.
New York’s Nestor Cortes and Seattle’s Robbie Ray were locked in a scoreless draw through five innings.
Haggerty broke up a no-hit bid by Cortes with a solo shot off the left field foul pole with one out in the bottom of the sixth.
The Yankees responded in the seventh against Ray, the reigning American League Cy Young Award winner.
With one out, Isiah Kiner-Falefa walked on a 3-2 pitch and No. 9 hitter Higashioka went deep to left-center field, also on a full count, to end Ray’s afternoon after a season-high 115 pitches. An out later, Judge homered to left off Penn Murfee (3-0) to give the Yankees a 3-1 lead.
Cortes ran out of steam in the seventh, as Ty France grounded a single into right field, advanced to second on a passed ball by Higashioka and scored on Mitch Haniger’s line-drive single to left. Albert Abreu (2-2) replaced Cortes and struck out Eugenio Suarez before Santana hit a 1-1 pitch into the first row of seats in right to give the Mariners a 4-3 lead.
Diego Castillo worked a perfect eighth for the Mariners and Paul Sewald did the same in the ninth to record his 15th save.
Cortes pitched six-plus innings and allowed three runs on three hits. He walked one and struck out 10.
Ray went 6 1/3 innings and gave up two runs on three hits, with five walks and seven strikeouts.
–Field Level Media