NEW YORK — Robbie Ray said it was one of the worst environments he’s ever pitched in, confidently placing it in his personal top three. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said it was probably the “worst conditions we’ve ever experienced.” Jung Hoo Lee said the game never would’ve started in the KBO.
Friday night at Yankee Stadium was not for the casuals or the fairweathers, but rather a frigid, wet, agonizing slog of a ballgame suited exclusively for diehards and fiends of ball. For those of a certain generation, the weather may have evoked memories of those extra-inning night games at Candlestick Park, tests of endurance in which fans were rewarded with “Croix de Candlestick” pins. The Yankees announced a paid attendance of 35,286; it would be generous to assume even half bothered to show up.
Amidst the downpour, San Francisco’s offense poured on runs. Manager Bob Melvin tweaked his lineup and instantly saw results. Lee homered in his first at-bat under Yankee Stadium’s bright lights. Ray somehow grinded through four innings of one-run ball. The environment was atypical, but for these Giants, the result was familiar enough: a 9-1 walloping of the New York Yankees over six rain-shortened innings.
San Francisco has found different ways to win ballgames in the first two weeks of the season. There have been slugfests. There have been barn burners. This victory, a battle between nature and New York, resides in a category of its own.
“Obviously, the conditions were tough,” Melvin said. “It seemed like the conditions were never going to end. But we did some really good things offensively. Anybody pitching in today’s game was having a rough go of it.”
Of the seven combined pitchers to take the mound on Friday, no one had a rougher go of it than the Yankees’ Marcus Stroman, the first starter to see the Giants’ tweaked lineup. With Mike Yastrzemski surging and LaMonte Wade Jr. struggling, Melvin flipped their spots in the lineup. Yastrzemski would bat leadoff, and Wade would bat sixth. The result? Yastrzemski, Wade and Jung Hoo Lee headlined a five-run first inning, one where Stroman recorded two outs before being pulled.
Yastrzemski, fresh off hitting a walk-off home run on Wednesday, began the night by ripping a leadoff double on Stroman’s first pitch. After Willy Adames walked, Lee smashed a line drive that kept carrying and cleared the right-center field fence for his first homer of the year, one that gave the Giants a 3-0 lead.
“That’s pretty cool. That wasn’t lost on me,” Melvin said. “You come into this place and you’ve heard about it and obviously never played in it before. Hits a home run in difficult conditions after we have two guys on right away. Certainly gives us a lift in the first.”
Like the rain, San Francisco’s offense didn’t relent.
Matt Chapman and Heliot Ramos drew back-to-back walks to set the stage for Wade, who pulled a double into the right-field corner. Chapman and Ramos scored, and San Francisco extended its lead to 5-0. The Giants wouldn’t pile on further in the inning but succeeded in chasing Stroman, who was pulled with two outs after allowing a single to Tyler Fitzgerald. As the sky showered Stroman with rain, the relentless crowd showered him with boos.
With a healthy lead established, the game became something of a race against the rain.
Weather forecasts estimated that the precipitation would really pick up around 9:00 p.m. EST, but the game’s start time was curiously pushed back from 7:05 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. With the five-run advantage, the Giants needed to just complete the minimum five innings to secure the win. Getting through five innings in a timely manner on a night like this was easier said than done. Ray, who struck out seven but walked four, can attest to that first-hand.
The left-hander needed an uneconomical 98 pitches to complete four innings, only 56 of which were strikes. Of the 289 total pitches that were thrown, roughly 60 percent of them landed for strikes.
“I felt like the weather, itself, wasn’t that bad, but then the field conditions started to turn a little bit after the second inning,” Ray said.
To that point, Yankees’ grounds crew tried its best to keep the infield dry — especially the mound.
In the second, for example, the Yankees’ Austin Wells hit an RBI double that bounced off the very top of the right-center field wall, and the umpires convened to determine whether it was a home run. As the umpires looked at the call, the grounds crew dumped dry dirt all over the field. To Ray, there was only so much they could really do.
“It gets muddy. I think that’s the biggest thing,” Ray said. “It doesn’t matter how much quick dry you throw down. When it’s raining like that, it turns to mud. It’s just a sloppy situation.”
The Giants and Yankees needed a little over two hours to complete five sloppy innings, but they dragged themselves across that finish line around 9:45 p.m. Just in time, too.
In the top of the sixth, the environment was no longer tenable for baseball — not that it ever really was.
Yankees reliever Yoendrys Gómez nearly hit Adames with an errant sweeper, resulting in a mound visit from pitching coach Matt Blake. Gómez followed up by walking Lee and nearly plunking him on the final pitch, forcing the grounds crew to slather the mound with dry dirt. But after Wade drew a bases-loaded walk, the grounds crew rolled the tarp onto the field at 10:04 p.m. EST and the game entered a rain delay. Finally, at 10:34 p.m., the game was called. The Giants had won, and Ray was rewarded with a victory despite throwing just four innings.
“Everybody has to pitch in it, right? It’s not like it’s going to change. For me, it’s make the pitches that you can and do your best to give your team a chance to win.”
On a night as challenging as any, Ray certainly did his part. The offense handled the rest.