Gio Urshela began his day at the plate by taking a splinter of his bat to the eye.
His day ended when he kept his bat in one piece and used it to crush a ball 424 feet, lifting the Yankees to victory.
Urshela delivered a solo blast in the eighth inning to key a Yankees comeback that turned a three-run deficit into a 7-5 win over the Athletics on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
“That was a really exciting game, fighting all day long,” Urshela said after brushing off the broken-bat scare in the second inning. “That’s the team that I know we can [be].”
DJ LeMahieu added a two-run single later in the inning for some extra breathing room — which the Yankees ended up needing — but it was Urshela who took Jesus Luzardo deep to put them ahead 5-4. It was the Yankees’ first lead of the game after they had trailed 4-1 through five innings.
Aroldis Chapman gave a run back in the top of the ninth, shortly after manager Aaron Boone was ejected for arguing balls and strikes, but the closer recovered to record his 15th save of the season.
The Yankees (37-33) won for the fourth time in five games, and they used a late-inning comeback for each of those victories. They began the week 3-22 when trailing after six innings, but ended Saturday 7-23 in that category after late rallies also keyed a three-game sweep of the Blue Jays before the Yankees came home to host the A’s (44-28).
“It’s everyone in the offense contributing,” Boone said. “So many things up and down the lineup that were winning at-bats today against a really good team.”
Nestor Cortes also provided three huge innings of relief. That included putting out a fire that Domingo German created in the fifth inning before he left the game trailing 4-1 with two on and no outs. Chad Green later struck out the side in the eighth to set the Yankees up to win it.
Gary Sanchez got the comeback started in the sixth inning against Oakland starter Chris Bassitt, when he hit his fifth home run in his past nine games to cut the deficit to 4-2.
lint Frazier, starting for the first time since last Sunday, led off the seventh inning with his second double of the day. He came around to score on a two-out single by Aaron Judge that cut the Yankees’ deficit to 4-3 against reliever Burch Smith.
Sanchez then drew a walk before Giancarlo Stanton, facing Yusmeiro Petit who was on in relief of Smith, slapped a single the other way to drive in Judge and tie the game 4-4.
“Those are winning at-bats right there,” Boone said. “Over time, we’re going to slug our way to a lot of things, but you gotta do things in tight ballgames against leverage guys in the pen.”
Urshela, who drove in the Yankees’ first run of the day with an RBI single in the fourth inning to make it 2-1, nearly didn’t make it past his first at-bat, when a chip of his bat broke off and caught him in the right eye.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Urshela said. “I saw the piece of wood coming to my eyes. I didn’t even see the ball. I didn’t even see when I was running. My eye started feeling a little pain. But thank God I’m good.”
After getting drops in his eye and making sure the piece of wood was no longer in there, Urshela remained in the game and eventually came through in the clutch. Of his 36 home runs with the Yankees, 16 have either tied the game or given them the lead.
“Gio’s always been a guy, since we’ve had him certainly, that in the biggest spots, you love him up there,” Boone said. “He kind of seems to go along and always surprises you with just how good his power is, to straightaway center field especially.”
