Aaron Hicks, Yankees' Mr. No Respect, keys win over Nationals

Yankees turn back Nationals 4-2 on Monday night after losing completion of suspended game earlier in the day.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Center fielder Aaron Hicks often seems to be the Rodney Dangerfield of the Yankees.

Give the man some respect.

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His defense and throwing arm in center field are elite.

Offensively, while the switch-hitter isn’t hitting for much of an average, Hicks has a solid .796 OPS because he gets on base a lot.

Also, Hicks has pop from both sides of the plate and hits his share of homers.

If the Yankees didn’t have so many established and young stars in their best-in-baseball, slugger-filled lineup, Hicks probably would get more pub for what he brings.

Hicks was one of the Yankees’ heroes on Monday night when they salvaged a 4-2 win over the Washington Nationals in the makeup of a May 16 rainout after losing the completion of a May 15 suspended game 5-3.

In the win, Hicks was 2 for 5 hitting leadoff in place of left fielder Brett Gardner, who is nursing a sore right knee.

Hicks scored the Yankees’ first run after leading off the game with a line double, then he turned a 2-1 Nationals lead into a 3-2 advantage in the fifth with a no-doubt-about-it, two-run homer to right off Nationals starter Erick Fedde.

“It was a little two-seamer that drifted over the middle and I just hit it well,” Hicks said.

The homer was Hicks’ third in his last five games and No. 9 for the season.

Hicks, who was 2 for 5 on the night, has been hot for 2 1/2 weeks, as he’s hitting .291 (16 for 55) with five homers and 10 RBI over his last 16 games.

“It’s kind of just a feel,” Hicks said. “I feel like I’ve been seeing the ball well. I’m not chasing pitches and kind of keeping it in the zone and taking good swings.”

The Yankees got a lot of good pitching in the nightcap, too.

Starter Sonny Gray (5-4) allowed just two runs over five-plus innings, then after he left a first-and-third, nobody-out mess in the sixth with the Yanks up a run, hot reliever Jonathan Holder came on to retire three in a row to put out the fire.

Holder struck out the first two hitters that he faced – Mark Reynolds on 12 pitches, then pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy on three – before ending the inning by inducing Pedro Severino’s popup to short.

“That was huge,” Gray said. “Walking off the mound there, at that situation you’re just kind of hoping that we can get out of the inning with a tie game. To do what (Holder) did was incredible, and I feel like after he did that you could feel a jolt go across the bench and we knew we were going to win this game.”

From there, the Yanks picked up an insurance run in the seventh on a two-out RBI double by Giancarlo Stanton, then three other relievers put away the Nats.

David Robertson and Dellin Betances took turns getting through the seventh and eighth with ease, then Aroldis Chapman picked up his 21st save in 22 chances after putting the tying runs on plate in the ninth with one down.

Right fielder Aaron Judge deserves a save, too, as he raced back to the warning track to catch Trea Turner’s liner and end the game.

The day started poorly for the Yankees when they dropped the suspended game, which resumed in the bottom of the sixth with the score tied 3-3.

Rookie phenom Juan Soto quickly put the Nats ahead by hitting a two-run homer in the sixth off Yankees reliever Chad Green for a 5-3 lead, and that’s how it ended.

But the Yankees rebounded to win the second game, so they were able to leave town for a late-night train ride back to New York with a split after a long day in D.C., that leads right into a home series against the Seattle Mariners that begins Tuesday.

“This was a tough little travel schedule for us for sure,” Gray said. “Coming back home, it’ll be late, but we get to go back home and we’ll try to get some sleep and show up to the park (Tuesday) trying to be ready to play at home.”

NOTABLE

— Stanton was 4 for 5 with a double, three singles and two RBI in Monday’s second game, raising his season average to .252. This was the third four-hit game of the season for Stanton.

— Nats superstar center fielder Bryce Harper is hitting .212 with a NL-leading 19 homers after going 0 for 4 with a strikeout in Monday’s second game.

— Harper was 0-for-11 with four strikeouts, three walks and two hit by pitches in four interleague games against the Yankees.

LOOKING AHEAD

Tuesday: Seattle Mariners at Yankees, 7:05 p.m., YES. LHP Marco Gonzales (7-3, 3.42) vs. Domingo German (1-4, 5.23).

Wednesday: Seattle Mariners at Yankees, 7:05 p.m., YES & MLB Network (out of market). RHP Felix Hernandez (6-6, 5.44) vs. RHP Jonathan Loaisiga (1-0, 0.00).

Thursday: Seattle Mariners at Yankees, 7:05 p.m., YES. LHP James Paxton (6-1, 3.44) vs. Luis Severino (10-2, 2.09).

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.