Yankees 8, Phillies 9: Severino has iffy outing as Yanks lose back-and-forth game

Luis Severino has struggled so far this spring, having allowed five home runs in his 8.2 innings prior to Wednesday afternoon. In this game, he didn’t allow any homers, but it was his control that was an issue in another less-than-stellar outing. He issued a couple walks on the day, several as part of a less-than-stellar first inning. That quickly doomed the Yankees to allowing a seven-run frame to the Phillies in the first.

After that, the offense slowly started to work their way back into things. The starters — featuring Anthony Volpe and Aaron Judge among others — scored a couple runs before the bench completed a comeback, even taking the lead. However, the Phillies rallied themselves and eventually came away with a 9-8 win.

Severino walked the first two batters he faced and got two two-ball counts in all but one of the batters he faced. He retired just one batter before Nick Castellanos and Jake Cave hit back-to-back singles to knock him out of the game. Carlos Gomez came in for him and also struggled. He also couldn’t get out of the inning and only retired one batter. Kaleb Cowart finally got out of it, but by the time the frame was over, it was 7-0.

Facing Phillies starter Aaron Nola, the Yankees got one of those runs back in the bottom half of the first. With Aaron Judge on second after a double, Oswaldo Cabrera doubled him home.

The Yankees brought Severino back out for the second to get some more work. It seemed like things might go similarly when he walked Castellanos to start the inning. However this time, he followed that was three-straight outs. The last one was a hard Josh Harrison liner that deflected off him to Volpe, who made the play at first. Thankfully, Severino seemed to be okay after it.

Severino finally threw a clean inning in the third, which would be the end of his day. He finished with a final line of four runs allowed on two hits and three walks in 2.1 innings.

Ron Marinaccio replaced him, and he too had some trouble with control. He put runners on with a hit by pitch and a walk, but then induced a double play and struck out Jake Cave to work out of the jam. He would come back out for another inning but exited after getting one out and allowing a Josh Harrison double.

The Yankees picked up another couple runs in the sixth. Aaron Hicks and Estevan Florial both drew one-out walks. Two batters later, Jake Bauers plated Hicks with a single. Volpe then continued making his case for making the big league roster soon when he also hit an RBI single.

After that, the bench players started to come in, and both Jamie Westbrook and Spencer Jones drew bases-loaded walks to each score a run.

For the day, Volpe went 1-for-2 with two walks, and two solid plays in the field. Judge went 1-for-2 with one walk, as did Cabrera. Hicks’ walk was the only time he reached base on the day, while Isiah Kiner-Falefa went 0-for-3.

The backups went on to take the lead on a three-run eighth inning, getting some “help” from the opposing team. The Phillies’ Louis Head went through his own bout of wildness, loading the bases with Billy McKinney and Jones’ hit by pitches and a Westbrook walk. Wilmer Difo somewhat came through in that spot, hitting a fly ball that should’ve been caught, only for Phillies center fielder Garrett Whitley to lose the ball in the sun. It dropped in for a RBI single. Elijah Dunham then hit a groundball that could’ve been two, but Dalton Guthrie couldn’t totally field it cleanly, and the Phillies only got one out from the play, which also tied the game. That also allowed the inning to still be alive for Mickey Gasper to single home another run and give the Yankees the lead.

Alas, there was still yet another twist yet to come. In the top of the ninth, Madison Stokes led off the inning with a home run off Jack Neely, tying things up again. Neely then allowed another couple hits, culminating in the Phillies taking the lead on a ground out.

The Yankees had one last shot at a rally in the ninth when Westbrook reached on a two-out infield single that the Phillies again somewhat messed up. However, that didn’t end up leading to anything as the Phillies closed out the win.

New York will look to rebound tomorrow night against the Pirates, who they’ll face at home with Clarke Schmidt on the mound. Right-hander Johan Oviedo will get the ball for the Bucs, and first pitch will be at 6:35pm ET.

Box Score