Yankees beat Indians on Austin Romine’s mad dash | Rapid reaction

Yankees catcher Austin Romine notched the equivalent of a Little League homer, which pushed the Yankees over the Indians, 5-4, at Progressive Field on Saturday.

CLEVELAND — The Yankees get trashed for hitting too many home runs.

Going deep Little League style saved them Saturday.

Austin Romine’s mad dash around the bases proved the difference in a 5-4 win over the Indians at Progressive Field.

In the seventh inning, Romine led off hacking at the first pitch. He shot it into the right-center field gap on a line. His legs never stopped churning.

As right fielder Brandon Guyer dropped the ball trying to pick it up with his glove, Romine raced around second base. The throw to third base from cutoff man Erik Gonzalez wasn’t just late. It skipped past third baseman Jose Ramirez as Romine was safe with a head-first slide.

After a few bounces, it took a funky hop over the fence and into the Indians dugout — out of play. Umpires waved home Romine, who went nuts as he crossed the plate. The Yankees’ dugout exploded in celebration when he reached — the go-ahead run snapping a 4-all tie, which the Yankees would hold. 

Guyer and Gonzalez each were given errors. For Romine, it was a double.

It came after a so-so outing from starting pitcher CC Sabathia and manager Aaron Boone’s second career ejection.

Aroldis Chapman, who won’t pitch in Tuesday’s All-Star game due to knee tendinitis, got his 26th save.

What it means

The Yankees have won two of their first three games in Cleveland. They will go for the series win Sunday.

They stayed within 3 1/2 games of the first-place Red Sox in the American League East. Boston beat the Blue Jays earlier in the day.

The Yankees improved to 15-9 in one-run games and 45-6 when scoring first.

Tossed

Boone argued with umpires during an odd happening in Giancarlo Stanton‘s at-bat in the sixth inning.

He stayed on the field to argue and got thrown out. After getting thrown out, Boone yelled at the first base umpire, walked to the home plate umpire, and then yelled in his face, too.

It was Boone’s second career ejection. He took over as Yankees manager in the offseason. Boone was also thrown out April 22 in Texas. 

It’s unclear what Boone was arguing.

Stanton swung at an 0-2 fastball, which appeared to hit him in the knuckles.

Umpires called Stanton out via strikeout. That’s when Boone went ballistic. It might have been that Boone was arguing that Stanton shouldn’t have been struck out, though typically when a player gets hit with a pitch while swinging, it’s called a strike.

Back and forth

Sabathia gave up a bunch of hard contact but managed it — at least a lot of the game.

He was finished after giving up four runs in 5 2/3 innings on four hits, two walks and two strikeouts.

He’s given up at least four runs in each of his last two starts after having surrendered no more than three in any of the prior six.

Didi Gregorius’ first-inning blast over the right-center field wall put the Yankees ahead, 3-0. It came on an 0-1 changeup that hung and it was his second home run in three games. 

The Indians got back a run quickly. Jose Ramirez set a team-record for home runs before the All-Star break with 29 when he crushed a Sabathia offering far over the left-center field wall. It was a solo blast.

Sabathia ran into a little trouble in the third inning. Erik Gonzalez started the inning with a groundball single and stole second base. After a Francisco Lindor groundout moved him to third, Brantley scored Gonzalez on a ground out to first base.

Two batter after Boone got tossed, Greg Bird launched a solo homer in to the right-field seats. It was a no-doubter off the bat and was Bird’s eighth blast of the season. He entered the night with a seven-game hit streak.

Things got dicey in the sixth, however. With Boone out of the game, bench coach Josh Bard took over for the Yankees. With one out, Sabathia gave up a groundball single to Michael Brantley. The grounder was just out of the reach of second baseman Tyler Wade in shallow right field due to the shift. Then Jose Ramirez walked at the end of an eight-pitch battle.

That prompted pitching coach Larry Rothschild to talk to Sabathia, who got Edwin Encarnacion to ground out to third base, but the play moved the runners to second and third. Sabathia seemed to be running on fumes at that point.

Yet the Yankees stuck with him and Brandon Guyer hit a hard groundball at Andujar, which he did an excellent job fielding deep behind the bag. But his throw across the diamond wasn’t in time. Brantley scored. When first baseman Bird saw Jose Ramirez breaking for home, he made a throw, but it was well over the head of catcher Romine and the game was tied at 4-all.

Next

Yankees righty Masahiro Tanaka (7-2, 4.68 ERA) vs. Indians righty Trevor Bauer (8-6, 2.30 ERA) at 1:10 p.m. Saturday.

Brendan Kuty may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @BrendanKutyNJ. Find NJ.com Yankees on Facebook.