AFL Game 32 Recap: Yankees’ Bats Help Scottsdale Win In Fall League Finale

The Scottsdale Scorpions (12-20) were able to end their Arizona Fall League season on a good note by snapping their four-game losing streak in a 8-5 win over the Salt River Rafters (17-11-4) on Thursday afternoon. Out of the seven RBI’s that were scored by the Scorpions, four of them came from Yankees’ prospects as well as seven of the team’s 11 hits. All three Yankees (Gregory Bird, Aaron Judge, and Dante Bichette Jr.) had two or more hits in the victory. Judge went 2-for-5 with a RBI, Bird went 2-for-4 with a RBI, and Bichette Jr. went 3-for-5 with a pair of RBI’s.

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It didn’t start off great for Scottsdale as Scorpions’ starter Joely Rodriguez (Pirates) gave up a pair of runs in each of the first two innings. After the Rafters had runners at second and third with one out, former Yankee’ prospect Peter O’Brien (Diamondbacks) hit a sac fly to center field to score Evan Marzilli (Diamondbacks). On the next batter, Brandon Drury (Diamondbacks) hit a double to left center, scoring Joe Sclafan (Astros) to make it 2-0. The scoring continued in the top of the second inning when Taylor Featherston (Rockies) hit a RBI single to center and a RBI groundout by Marzilli made it a 4-0 Rafters lead.

Against Diamondbacks’ prospect Archie Bradley, the Scorpions had a tall mountain to climb, but came right back with three runs in the bottom of the third inning. After back-to-back walks to start the inning, Judge and Bird would hit back-to-back RBI doubles to cut the deficit 4-2. Two batters later, Bichette Jr. would single to center to score Bird for the team’s third run.

After Salt Rivers made it 5-3 on a Ryan Casteel (Rockies) sac fly in the top of the fourth inning, the Scorpions would “sting” the opposition with five runs in the bottom of the inning. Daniel Carbonell (Giants) started the scoring with a RBI triple to center to score Kelby Tomlinson (Giants). Brandon Nimmo (Mets) would tie the game by scoring Carbonell via a sacrifice fly.

After back-to-back singles by Judge and Bird, Bichette Jr. would drive in his second run of the game on an infield single to make it 6-5. After Judge scored on a throwing error one batter later, Bird would later score on a walk by Tomlinson to make the score 8-5, Scorpions.

After the fourth inning, Scottsdale’s bullpen did not allow a single run. Two Yankees got the chance to pitch in the final Fall League game of the season. Alex Smith picked up his second hold of the season with a scoreless sixth inning, giving up one hit and walking one. Smith still finished the AFL season with a 10.45 ERA. The other Yankee who pitched was Kyle Haynes. Haynes pitched a perfect ninth inning for his second save. In ten games in the AFL, Haynes had a 2.31 ERA and gave up only three runs.

Ryan O’Sullivan (Phillies) recorded the win for the Scorpions while Jason Adam (Twins) took the loss for the Rafters.

The Yankees got some relatively good news on Thursday as Josh Norris of Baseball America tweeted out an injury update about Tyler Austin from assistant general manager Billy Eppler. The knee injury Austin got occurred on Saturday when he collided with Gregory Bird while going for a foul ball.