The Yankees spent most of Saturday afternoon looking stuck, then detonated in one inning and left the Nationals with another bullpen collapse.
New York erased a 2-0 deficit with four runs in the eighth, powered by three home runs, and beat Washington 4-2 at Nationals Park. For seven innings, the Yankees had the kind of game that usually ends in a groan: a few chances, no payoff, and an offense that never seemed to find the big hit. Then Ryan McMahon changed the temperature of the whole afternoon.
McMahon broke the silence with a two-strike homer off Orlando Ribalta to right-center field. Ben Rice followed with a walk, and Trent Grisham jumped on the next pitcher, Clayton Beeter, with a two-run blast to right. Paul Goldschmidt then went deep on the very next pitch.
In a matter of moments, the Yankees went from trailing by two to leading by two.
“Just trying to put a good one on, get something started, get on base,” McMahon said afterward. “I got to it and luckily kind of started us a little bit.”
That was the spark the Yankees had been waiting for. They had already put runners on in the first inning and again in the sixth, when Rice and Grisham reached to begin the frame, but the inning fizzled out.
Goldschmidt grounded into a double play, Cody Bellinger flied out, and another opportunity vanished. The eighth inning finally gave the lineup the breakthrough it had been chasing all day.
The Nationals came into the game leading Major League Baseball with 27 blown saves, and the Yankees made it 28.
Grisham’s swing was the biggest blow. His homer was his 10th of the season and pushed him to 40 RBI. Aaron Boone pointed to the way Grisham handles pressure when the game is hanging in the balance.
“He’s stepped up a lot for us the last few years,” Boone said.
Goldschmidt’s shot added the cushion and snapped his own home-run drought. It was his 15th of the season and his first since June 24.
The Yankees finished with nine hits, but the damage was concentrated in that one explosive inning.
The comeback mattered even more because Cam Schlittler had to recover from a rough opening. James Wood homered on Schlittler’s first pitch of the game, and Curtis Mead followed with another home run two batters later. Just like that, Washington was up 2-0 before the Yankees had settled in.
Schlittler did not let the game unravel. He worked 6 2/3 innings, allowed four hits and the two early runs, walked four and struck out six on 99 pitches. Washington did not score after the second inning.
“Not the start he wanted,” McMahon said. “But to go six and two-thirds after that and keep them at two runs really kept us in the game. It’s what Nasty does, and he’s an absolute competitor out there.”
His ERA moved from 2.01 to 2.05, still the best mark in the American League.
“You’re not always going to be dominant and on top of it every single time out,” Boone said. “You’ve got to find a way, and he’s shown us that at every turn.”
The bullpen handled the rest. Brent Headrick came in with two outs in the seventh and immediately faced trouble after two infield singles and a walk loaded the bases.
He struck out CJ Abrams to keep the Yankees within two. Fernando Cruz needed only seven pitches to get through the eighth.
David Bednar, back out after throwing two innings Friday night, finished it with an efficient 11-pitch ninth.
Bednar gave up a two-out single to Wood but got Luis García to ground to Anthony Volpe for the final out. It was Bednar’s 18th save in 20 chances and his 16th straight scoreless outing.
“He’s going right at guys,” McMahon said. “He’s getting strike one, strike two pretty quick.
From there, he’s got his choice. He’s been dominant.”
The win gave the Yankees three straight for the first time since their four-game run from June 13 through June 17. That matters because they had lost 11 of their previous 13 before this stretch, a skid that made every inning feel heavier than it should have.
Now they’ve taken two straight in Washington in comeback fashion. The Nationals led into the ninth on Friday and into the eighth on Saturday, and lost both.
Boone called them “feel-good wins” because different players have stepped up along the way, and Saturday was a perfect example. McMahon started it, Rice kept it alive, Grisham delivered the knockout swing, Goldschmidt added insurance, Schlittler steadied the game after a brutal start, Headrick escaped a jam, and Cruz and Bednar closed it out.
The Yankees are 53-42, and Boone reached 750 career wins as their manager.
Will Warren will start Sunday as New York goes for a three-game sweep in Washington.
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