The Yankees spent six innings Tuesday stuck in a familiar place: waiting for their offense to wake up while the pitching did its job and the game stayed within reach. Seattle had a 1-0 lead in the sixth, and for a while it looked like Bryan Woo and Ryan Weathers might keep New York boxed in just long enough for one Randy Arozarena swing to decide everything.
Then the seventh inning arrived, and the Yankees finally stacked the kind of at-bats that have been missing so often since the break.
New York sent nine hitters to the plate, collected five hits and a walk, and flipped a one-run deficit into a 4-1 win over the Mariners in front of 41,407 at Yankee Stadium. The rally started with Luis Garcia Jr., kept moving with Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s speed, and ended with Ryan McMahon doing exactly what the Yankees needed most: putting the ball in play and letting the inning breathe.
McMahon’s two-out, two-run single through the left side off Michael Rucker broke the game open and gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead. It also marked the 500th RBI of McMahon’s major league career.
The hit wasn’t loud. It wasn’t a blast into the seats or a highlight-reel moment built for the scoreboard. It was a controlled, clean swing on a 2-1 curveball, the kind of at-bat that wins tight games when the lineup has been short on those all season.
“I was just trying to stay inside the baseball,” McMahon said, “give us a good chance to try to get some runs in.”
That mindset showed up in the inning. Garcia opened the rally by lining his second double of the night off the right-field wall.
Chisholm followed, then swiped second while George Lombard Jr. struck out. Spencer Jones drew a walk to load the bases, setting the stage for McMahon with the Yankees still trailing.
McMahon has had a strange season at the plate, at least by the numbers. He entered Tuesday hitting just .216 with runners in scoring position. But in late-and-close spots, he’s been a different hitter altogether, carrying a .350 average, .413 on-base percentage, .550 slugging percentage and .963 OPS in those situations, defined as the seventh inning or later with the batting team ahead by one, tied or with the tying run available.
That version showed up at the perfect time.
Once McMahon tied and then pushed the Yankees ahead, the rest of the inning kept rolling. Austin Wells dropped in a bloop single to reload the bases, and Trent Grisham followed with a two-run single through the left side against Eduard Bazardo to make it 4-1.
“Just a lot of tough at-bats,” Boone said.
The Yankees had been looking for that sort of chain reaction all night, and McMahon later said that stringing together quality plate appearances is the key to more nights like this.
“Stacking them, that’s super important,” McMahon said. “That’s how you score runs and something we got to do a little bit more.”
The swing carried a little extra weight because of who was in the dugout on the other side. Seattle had interest in McMahon in July 2025 while searching for help at third base before the deadline, but never landed him. New York did, acquiring him from Colorado for pitching prospects Griffin Herring and Josh Grosz.
The Yankees brought him in for more than the box score line. He gives them a left-handed bat under control through 2027 and a steadier presence at third after months of shuffling options there. Tuesday was a reminder of why that mattered: even in a season where the offense has not always looked the part, McMahon can still deliver the swing that changes the game.
The Mariners, meanwhile, took their fifth straight loss and their 14th in 19 games.
New York improved to 67-52, won for the third time in four games, and stayed six games behind Tampa Bay in the AL East while moving three games ahead of Boston for the top American League wild-card spot. The comeback was the Yankees’ 30th of the season.
For McMahon, it was a career milestone. For the Yankees, it was a needed breakthrough at exactly the right time.
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