Anthony Rizzo homers again as Yankees beat Marlins, 4-2

With emergency first-aid trade pickups Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo playing their second games with the team, and new starting pitcher Andrew Heaney watching from the dugout, the latest Yankees got an up-close look at the type of baseball that has defined their season.

Runners galore were left on base in the Yankees’ 4-2 road win over the Marlins. The visitors put runners on in every inning from the second to fifth but settled for just three runs during that stretch. Rizzo then endeared himself even more to his new teammates and adorers with his second enormous home run in as many games. In the seventh inning, he put a ball on the right-field concourse that left the bat at 108.7 miles per hour. In doing so, he became the first player since Yankees legend Ji-Man Choi to homer in his first two games with the franchise.

Four runs was enough to topple the Marlins, an already-bad team that was gutted even more this week. Without Starling Marte, Adam Duvall and Yimi Garcia (traded) and manager Don Mattingly (tested positive for COVID-19), Miami ran out a lineup that had no business beating a playoff contender. Luckily for the Yankees, they skirted embarrassment and frustration to beat the Marlins, whose red and powder blue alternate uniforms were a nice distraction from the fact that they were fielding a Quad-A team.

If there was a game for the Marlins to take this weekend, it was Saturday’s, as rookie sensation and All-Star pitcher Trevor Rogers took the bump. Making his second career start against the Yankees, Rogers only stuck around for 3 2/3 innings. Control problems sunk their teeth into Rogers’ left arm. He walked three, hit another and let the Yankees record five hits. It was the first time all year that the possible Rookie of the Year went fewer than four innings.

The Yankees were kind enough to wait until the second inning before pouncing. Rizzo took a fastball off the knuckles and Giancarlo Stanton followed with a clothesline off the left-field fence. Stanton’s 411-foot liner was hit so hard that umpires initially couldn’t tell if it cleared the fence or hit the top of the wall. A review confirmed that it stayed in the park. Runs came when Rougned Odor jumped on the first pitch he saw for an RBI single, and Gary Sanchez finished a quality at-bat with an opposite-field double.

The Yankees then continued an unfortunate theme of their season, as neither Odor or Sanchez could score from the no-out, second and third scenario. Tyler Wade and Domingo German struck out and Gleyber Torres grounded meekly to shortstop to end the threat.

German picked up right where he left off last time he pitched, when he brought a no-hitter to the eighth inning only for the Yankees to lose 5-4. The Marlins didn’t get their first hit on German until the fourth. They made things prickly in the second, when Rizzo showcased his baseball smarts and defensive prowess. With runners on first and second, Rizzo snuck in behind an unsuspecting Bryan De La Cruz and readied for Sanchez’s throw. The catcher so often mercilessly ridiculed for his defense slung a strike to Rizzo, picking De La Cruz — a neophyte in his second MLB game — off first base.

After the pickoff — Sanchez’s 11th since 2016, most among American League catchers — German struck out Lewis Brinson to end the inning. German pitched well but fell victim to the National League rules and had his day shortened by a pinch hitter. With a number 16 drawn inside a heart on the front of his hat — a nod to Jose Fernandez, who he played with in the Marlins’ minor league system — German pitched with noticeable confidence. Saturday would have been Fernandez’s 29th birthday, and though he didn’t pitch as long as he hoped, German’s start was a touching tribute for his fallen friend.

The Marlins’ runs came on Jorge Alfaro’s fourth-inning triple and a wild pitch. Alfaro scurried home after German and Sanchez appeared to get crossed up, drilling umpire Larry Vanover in the mask with a fastball. Wobbly defense gave the Yankees a run in the fifth though, when Alfaro couldn’t corral reliever Anthony Bender’s first pitch out of the bullpen. It was the 13th run of the Yankees’ season on a wild pitch or passed ball, second only to the Minnesota Twins.

Lucas Luetge, Clay Holmes, and Chad Green glided through four frames after German’s exit, and Jonathan Loaisiga finished things off with a weak-kneed save. What looked like it might be another day of missed opportunities ended as a win for the Yankees, who will try to overcome another one of their demons on Sunday: sweeping a team after winning the first two games of a series.