Headley’s homer, Sabathia’s dominance lead Yankees to 5-1 win over Royals

Source: FanGraphs

Hooray, the four-game losing streak is over. The Yankees beat the Royals by the score of 5-1 on Saturday night, scoring nearly as many runs in the game (five) as they did during the losing streak (six). It’s Saturday night, so let’s recap with bullet points:

• Two-Out Rally: The Yankees scored their first run on Carlos Beltran’s sacrifice fly, and they scored their next three runs after Danny Duffy recorded the first two outs of the fifth inning on eight pitches. Mark Teixeira and Beltran slapped two-out singles, then Chase Headley worked a seven-pitch at-bat before cranking a three-run homer into the Kansas City bullpen. He fell behind in the count 0-2, took three straight balls, fouled off a tough pitch, then homered. Really great at-bat. The Yankees managed to turn two outs and the bases empty into a three-run rally.
• No. 3 In The Rotation, No. 1 In My Heart: On a night the Yankees really needed it, CC Sabathia delivered an ace-like performance. Sabathia was in trouble in exactly one of his seven innings, when the Royals loaded the bases with no outs in the third, but he escaped allowing only one run and then retired 14 of the final 17 batters he faced. (One of the three reached on an error.) In the past, Sabathia would have gone back out for the eighth inning with his pitch count at 87, but the bullpen was rested and he got to finish up on a positive note. Sabathia’s last two starts have been really good. He was great in this game.
• Leftovers: Alex Rodriguez hit a solo homer in the top of the ninth to stretch the lead to 5-1. It was an opposite field shot off Joe Blanton, who’s shed a frickin’ ton of weight. A-Rod’s hit ten homers in 38 team games this year … Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller tossed perfect eighth and ninth innings, respectively … Jose Pirela had a rough game in the field, most notably botching a potential double play in the fifth … Stephen Drew and Beltran both had two hits … Jacoby Ellsbury (0-for-4, 1 BB) and Chris Young (0-for-5) did nothing atop the lineup but the Yankees scored five runs anyway. Neat.

Here are the box score, video highlights, and updated standings. Also check out our Bullpen Workload and Announcer Standings pages. The Yankees and Royals will wrap up this three-game series on Sunday afternoon. Chris Capuano will be making his season debut after suffering a quad injury early in Spring Training. Edinson Volquez will start the matinee for the Royals.