NEW YORK _ It wasn't pretty, but the Yankees needed it. The Bombers had to claw their way back, scoring five runs in the bottom of the seventh to win their first extra-innings game of the season. Gio Urshela's flyball single to right scored Mike Tauchman from second base to give them a 8-7 win over the Mets at Yankees Stadium in the first game of a doubleheader.
It was the second straight win for the Yankees (18-13), who had lost seven straight before that. It was just the second loss for the Mets (15-18) in the last six games.
Under the new rules for this season, the Yankees began the eighth inning (an extra inning with doubleheaders just seven innings this year) with Mike Tauchman on second base. He scored from there on Urshela's single to right. Michael Conforto fielded the ball and got it into Wilson Ramos who was slightly up the third-base line. Ramos, however, missed the tag behind him.
That came after a dramatic slog to get back in the game.
Aaron Hicks' capped off the Yankees' scraping and clawing back with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. The center fielder hit his third home run of the season, a two-run, game-tying shot that just scraped over the right-field wall off the Mets' beleaguered reliever Edwin Diaz to send the game into extra innings.
That Hicks homer was the first real sign of the old Bombers' offense in a while.
The Yankees scored in the first on Mike Tauchman's groundout after Luke Voit's double and again in the fourth when Dom Smith misplayed Mike Ford's fly ball double o left field. With the bases loaded, Voit's checked swing beat the shift to score two in the bottom of the seventh. They scored another on wild pitch by Diaz.
The Mets chased rookie righthander Michael King in the fourth with five straight bloop singles, scoring their first two runs. They took advantage of rookie Brooks Kriske with Robinson Cano crushing a two-run homer off before the right-hander issued three straight walks to end his day, being charged with five runs. Michael Conforto beat the shift by lining a double to left field off Ben Heller for two more runs in the sixth.
King lasted just 3.2 innings, charged with two runs on six hits and a walk. He struck out three and was hurt by weak-contact singles. The Yankees' pitching was stretched thin by injuries and playing five games in three days.
