New York Yankees Recap: Didi Gregorius Collects 3 Hits In 12-5 Win Over Braves

By Ricky Keeler | Mar 18, 2015

Wednesday night in Orlando, Florida brought about the second start of the spring for New York Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka. While Tanaka had another great outing, the story of the night down in Orlando was the Bronx Bombers’ offense. Eight different Yankees drove in runs during the team’s 12-5 win over the Atlanta Braves. This included an RBI, three hits, and a stolen base from one of their new offseason additions, shortstop Didi Gregorius.

After the first two innings were scoreless, New York got the scoring started in the third inning. After Gregorius led off the inning with a single and stole second base against Atlanta starter Mike Foltynewicz (acquired in the Evan Gattis trade), Chase Headley would drive him in with a two-out single to center to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead.

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With James Russell in for the Braves in the fourth inning, New York began to go on a scoring onslaught. In that inning, Garrett Jones started it off with a double. Then, Stephen Drew showed off the power with a two-run homer to right, his first of the spring, to give New York a 3-0 lead.

In the fifth, the Yankees would score four more runs. After a leadoff walk by Headley, Brian McCann hit a two-run homer to right, his first of the spring, to extend the lead to 5-0. Four batters later, Chris Young hit a two-out single to center to drive in Mark Teixeira and make it 6-0. Then, Didi would tack on his third hit of the game, a triple to right field that made it 7-0.

As for Masahiro Tanaka, once again he put together a solid outing against the Braves. In 3.2 innings, Tanaka gave up two hits and struck out three batters on 45 pitches. According to Josh Norris of Baseball America, Tanaka’s fastball didn’t have velocity, but he did have good location on his pitches:

I had Tanaka at mostly 87-90 that inning and he touched 93 once. Showed ability to locate well to both sides. #yankees
— Josh Norris (@jnorris427) March 18, 2015

Atlanta would get back in the game in the bottom of the fifth when former Yankee Kelly Johnson hit a three-run homer to right field as the Braves strung together three straight two-out hits against Jose Ramirez to cut the lead to 7-3.

New York would get one of those runs back in the sixth off Atlanta’s second balk of the night, this one by Arodys Vizcaino, that allowed Mason Williams to score and make it 8-3. The Yankees would get their run total into the double digits on back-to-back sacrifice flies from Tyler Austin and Garrett Jones.

Wednesday night brought about another debut for the Yankees as Andrew Bailey made his first relief appearance of the spring. In his only inning of work (sixth inning), Bailey gave up one unearned run (an Alberto Callaspo RBI single) on two hits.

In the seventh, after New York loaded the bases with nobody out, Mason Williams hit a sacrifice fly to right to score Slade Heathcott and made it 11-4. Atlanta would add one back against Danny Burawa when Joey Terdoslavich hit a sacrifice fly to center to cut the lead to 11-5. One more run would be added by the Yankees in the eighth when Cole Figueroa walked to drive in Tyler Austin on a wild pitch by Michael Kohn.

The Yankees will be back at Steinbrenner Field on Thursday night against the Philadelphia Phillies. The game will be at 7:05 PM ET and broadcasted on the YES Network and ESPN. Esmil Rogers will take the mound for New York against Aaron Harang for Philadelphia.

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