Trent Grisham opened the floodgates.
The Yankees were hitless in their previous seven at-bats with runners in scoring position Thursday when the center fielder stepped up in the bottom of the sixth against the Rangers.
He didn’t just clear the bases in slapping an RBI double to the wall in left center, he kicked off a contagious six-run rally that turned a 2-1 deficit into a 7-2 lead.
“I think that Grish at-bat’s the at-bat of the game,” Aaron Boone said following the 9-2 win in The Bronx. “And [then] we’re able to tack on a little bit from there.”
Following his clutch hit, Grisham reached home via a J.C. Escarra single, while Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger soon chipped in with RBIs as well, opening a five-run lead.
Every Yankees starter (other than the injured Jasson Domínguez) ended the game with a hit, and Grisham scored again in the seventh off a Max Schuemann double — the first hit of the recent call-up’s Yankees career.
Texas starter MacKenzie Gore allowed just four hits prior to the Yankees outburst, one being a first-inning RBI triple from Bellinger.
Still, Boone was pleased with the quality of the team’s at-bats after the game and singled out his lefty hitters for praise.
Grisham, who is one of those lefties, has struggled at the plate this year as his average dipped to .151 in late April.
But he was the protagonist of this Yankees comeback and the game’s co-leader in hits (three), alongside fellow lefty Bellinger.
“He has been incredibly unlucky because I feel like he’s hit the ball off the barrel a couple times a game and not being rewarded,” Boone said of Grisham.
That luck shifted in the fourth inning for the 29-year-old when he saw a soft pop-up land off his bat in front of catcher Danny Jansen.
From there, he eventually kicked the Yankees’ turnaround into gear in what turned out to be a collective effort.
“Everybody feels pretty close. It’s a tight-knit group, so I feel like everybody’s fighting for each other up there,” Schuemann said. “It’s not necessarily selfish in any way. I haven’t gotten that vibe since being here.”
The Yankees will look to carry that positivity into their Milwaukee road trip.
