This Day in Yankees History: An improbable rally in LA

Welcome to This Day in Yankees History. With the start of the 2020 season delayed for the foreseeable future, the Pinstripe Alley team decided to take a look back through history. These daily posts will highlight two or three key moments in Yankees history on a given date, as well as recognize players born on the day. Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane with us!

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10 Years Ago

Down to their last two outs and trailing by four runs, the Yankees rally to beat the Dodgers 8-6 in LA.

After Mark Teixeira struck out to start the top of the ninth, Alex Rodriguez got a rally started with a single off Dodgers’ All-Star closer Jonathan Broxton, and Robinson Cano brought him home with a single. After that, the next five Yankee hitters also reached safely, getting the Yankees within a run. A Colin Curtis groundout then plated the tying run, sending the game to extra innings. In the 10th, Cano gave the Yankees a lead with a two-run home run, and Mariano Rivera finished things off to give them the win.

It was a statistically improbable victory as Teixeira’s strike out to start the ninth left the Yankees a literal 0% chance according to win probability.

4 Years Ago

The Yankees and Rangers played one of the dumbest games ever on this day in 2016.

After already starting the game late due to rain, the two teams dealt with inclement weather throughout the night. The Yankees held a slim one-run lead going into the ninth and brought in closer Aroldis Chapman to try and finish things off. With the rain coming down, Chapman couldn’t find any sort of control and walked the lead-off hitter. At that point, the game finally went into a delay.

Likely not wanting to screw over the Rangers after they had both started and put the tying run on in the ninth, at no point was the game called. So the teams waited, and waited, and waited, and waited some more. At 2:15 AM, the weather finally relented, allowing the game to be resumed over three hours after it had stopped.

Kirby Yates was tasked with pitching the ninth, but that went poorly. He hit three batters and allowed two hits, as the Rangers scored four runs to take the lead. The Yankees couldn’t match and lost 9-6 at 2:44 AM, over seven hours after the first pitch.

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Other than your humble author, there are no major Yankee-related birthdays on this day. The closest to one is former farmhand Abraham Almonte, who was in the organization from 2006 to 2012, but has spent his major league career elsewhere, most recently with the Diamondbacks.

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We thank Baseball-Reference, the New York Times and Nationalpastime.com for providing background information for these posts.