Joey Gallo, meet life as a left-handed hitter at Yankee Stadium.
After a quiet first week since the Yankees landed him in a trade, Gallo had his coming-out party Thursday night in The Bronx. With some help from the short porch in right field, the slugger skied a towering three-run homer in the seventh inning to lift the Yankees to a 5-3 win over the Mariners.
“I was thinking in the outfield, the 10-year-old me would be crying right now and not believing what’s going on,” said Gallo, who grew up a Yankees fan.
Gallo’s first homer as a Yankee — capping off a huge night that also included a pair of doubles that keyed earlier rallies — looked like it might never come down, but when it did, it barely scraped over the wall down the line in right.
The 331-foot Yankee Stadium special, which was followed by a curtain call with 33,211 chanting Gallo’s name, turned a one-run deficit into a two-run lead as the Yankees (59-49) opened a critical four-game series against a fellow AL wild-card competitor in emphatic fashion.
“I had a couple friends from Texas text me and say, ‘Hey, that’s an F9 in Texas, that’s an out,” said Gallo, the former Ranger. “I was like, ‘Yeah, but we’re not in Texas anymore.’ … Hopefully there’s many more of those this year.”
Joey Gallo belts the go-ahead three-run homer in the seventh inning of the Yankees’ 5-3 win over the Mariners. Robert Sabo“Hit it in the perfect spot,” added manager Aaron Boone.
On a day that began with the Yankees getting the results of Gary Sanchez’s positive COVID-19 test — their third of the week — they moved to a season-high 10 games over .500 with their eighth win in the last 10 games.
The Mariners (58-52) arrived in The Bronx one game behind the Yankees in the wild-card race, with both teams trailing the Athletics for the final spot. With the win, the Yankees got within 1 ½ games of the idle A’s.
Gallo put the finishing touches on his night by catching a fly ball on the warning track in left field to help Aroldis Chapman — who allowed three-ball counts against all five batters he faced — to escape the ninth inning with runners stranded at the corners.
“It definitely threw a scare into us,” Boone said.
Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton had helped make Gallo’s go-ahead homer possible, extending the seventh inning with back-to-back two-out, two-strike singles off former Mets reliever Paul Sewald.
Gallo’s moonshot came a half-inning after former Mets prospect Jarred Kelenic had also visited the short porch to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead with a solo homer off Chad Green.
Joey Gallo makes a catch in the Yankees’ win over the Mariners. Jason Szenes Entering the day, Gallo was 2-for-23 with two doubles in six games as a Yankee, watching as fellow trade-deadline acquisition Anthony Rizzo made an instant impact. Thursday, he joined the party.
“For me, it was a matter of time [before] he really broke through and hit one out of the park, and a huge one at that,” Boone said.
Facing Mariners lefty Tyler Anderson, Gallo hooked a double in the second inning to move Stanton to third so he could score on a sacrifice fly by Gleyber Torres for the 1-0 lead.
After the Mariners went ahead 2-1 on Nestor Cortes Jr. (five innings, two runs), Gallo led off the fourth inning with another double and eventually scored on a swinging bunt by Kyle Higashioka to tie it.
The Yankees got some more production from Rizzo in the ninth inning — this time with his glove, scooping a throw from third baseman Rougned Odor to record Chapman’s first out — but it was Gallo who left the most memorable imprint.
“I feel like I’ve been here for years already, the way they trust me and they believe in me,” Gallo said. “That’s what gives me the confidence. I know I didn’t have a great first week, but they’re going to put me out there and keep playing, so I have to appreciate that.”
