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.