Yankees Highlights: J.A. Happ and the super bullpen dominate the Mariners

The Yankees suffered a deflating loss yesterday, but they’ve shown some resiliency all season, and they bounced back tonight with an easy win. They shut down the Mariners with ease, and did enough on offense to grab both the game and the series from Seattle. With the Rays off, New York now stands just 1.5 games back of first-place Tampa Bay.

Winner of the Game

J.A. Happ looked like he might take this honor when he carried a no-hitter through 4.2 innings, but we have to go with the Yankees’ pitching staff as a whole. Happ yielded just one hit in five-plus innings, striking out seven. The bullpen followed with four innings of one-run ball, allowing just one hit as well, a ninth-inning solo shot by Domingo Santana off Aroldis Chapman. It was the rare game so far where the team’s super bullpen played almost entirely to form.

Honorable mention: Gleyber Torres, who knocked a couple hits and started a nifty and crucial double play that ended the sixth inning, stranding the tying run at third.

Loser of the Game

Hardly anyone stuck out tonight with a terrible performance, so we’ll go with Miguel Andujar, one of two starters to fail to reach base, simply because a hitless night continued his poor streak after returning from the IL. His slash line on the year now sits at a pitiful .143/.162/.143. It feels unfair to single out Andujar for a run-of-the-mill bad game, but there were no reliever meltdowns or mistake-laden nights that stood out.

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FanGraphs