About Last Night: Pirates 5, Yankees 4 (11)

About Last Night: Pirates 5, Yankees 4 (11)

By Derek McAdam

April 7, 2025

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The New York Yankees lost yesterday’s game by a score of 5-4 to the Pittsburgh Pirates in their first extra inning game of the season. Here’s a quick rundown of the game.

Quick Stats:

W: Joey Wentz (1-1): 1 IP, 2 K              

L: Devin Williams (0-1): 0.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R

Although the Yankees lead the league in home runs through the first few games of the season, they did not have a single home run in yesterday’s game.

The Big Story:

The Yankees came into yesterday’s game seeking a series sweep, which would have improved them to 7-2 on the young season. All three games were surrounded with high chances of rain, but the Yankees were fortunate enough to get each game in, each of which went the full nine innings (or more).

Will Warren started for the Yankees and was looking to improve upon a decent debut against the Arizona Diamondbacks last Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Yankees were facing off against Andrew Heaney, a former Yankee who had a good first start of his 2025 season against the Miami Marlins.

It did not take the Yankees long to get on the board. In the 1st, Jazz Chisholm Jr. doubled to center field to score Cody Bellinger and give the Yankees a quick 1-0 lead.

Through his first eight batters, Warren seemed to be in a groove, getting ahead in counts and showing off some of his nasty pitches, including the sweeper. However, a walk to Isiah Kiner-Falefa and a single to Ke’Bryan Hayes set up Bryan Reynolds for a two-run double, giving the Pirates a 2-1 lead. In the following inning, the Pirates got a couple of more runs on a sacrifice fly from Tommy Pham and an RBI double from Kiner-Falefa.

For many Yankee fans, it was likely a very boring game until the 9th inning, when the Yankees got a couple of players on base. Heaney pitched a fantastic game against the Yankees, striking out 10 over seven innings.

With two strikes and two outs, with runners on first and second base, Oswald Peraza hit an RBI double to score Anthony Volpe and cut the Pirates’ lead to 4-2. Trent Grisham then came up and, with two strikes, sent a two-run single into right field to tie the game at 4-4. Luke Weaver pitched a 1-2-3 inning to send the game into extra innings.

The Yankees failed to score a run in either the 10th or 11th inning, and the Pirates came through on a walk-off RBI from Pham to win the game 5-4.

Player of the Game:

Trent Grisham is continuing to play well, especially at the plate and is definitely deserving of this award.

Notable Performances:

The bullpen had another solid outing yesterday and kept the game within striking range for the Yankees after Warren was taken out of the game after the 4th inning. Peraza also had a big hit to keep this game going, although had a big strikeout in the 11th.

Better to Forget:

It has not been a great start to Williams’ Yankee tenure, but it wasn’t as if yesterday’s performance was bad. It just happens to be the unfortunate circumstance of extra inning games these days.

My Take:

Entering the 9th inning, I was saying to myself that yesterday’s game was, so far, the most boring Yankee game of the young season. And of course, the Yankees are definitely going to have a few clunkers of games throughout the season. But then the 9th inning came along and made this game much more interesting.

But before I discuss the 9th, I have to discuss what happened before. Heaney looked like an ace against the Yankees, which seems to fit a trend for the Yankees that dates back to at least last season: they struggle against left-handed pitchers that do not have great velocity. Heaney was able to locate pitches all around the strike zone and worked quick throughout his entire start, keeping the Yankees off-balance and guessing at many pitches.

YES Network’s Michael Kay said during the broadcast that the Yankees have seen many left-handed pitchers throughout the season and that teams are throwing them in due to the abundance of left-handed hitters the Yankees have. While that is definitely a factor, I think that these teams have also looked at the Yankees’ recent history and have seen that this can definitely be a tough matchup for them.

As for Warren, it was definitely a small step back from his start against the Diamondbacks. His control was a little better, but he seems to lose some of his edge once runners reach base. It is definitely something that he will likely improve upon, so I am not too worried about it.

But this is a game I look at in a positive light, regardless of what the final outcome would have been. The Yankees were down three with just one strike remaining and ended up tying the game, which has to be a huge morale boost for the entire team.

However, when it comes to extra innings, the Yankees struggle to score with a ghost runner on 2nd to start off each inning, which seemed to be a common trend throughout the past couple of seasons. It was only the first extra innings game of the season for the Yankees, so I won’t get too caught up in that.

I cannot be upset with the Yankees taking two of the three games against Pittsburgh, and I can’t be too disappointed in their 9th inning comeback. It’s a tough loss, but we have a long season ahead and there are going to be other games similar to this one. They may need some confidence against Detroit, who is definitely going to be a tough matchup in which the Yankees will likely face their top three pitchers.

What’s Next?:

The Yankees will head to Detroit to face the Tigers in a three-game series starting today. For Yankee fans that may be unaware, all three of the start times for this series have been moved due to potential inclement weather. Carlos Rodon will start for the Yankees, while Casey Mize will start for the Tigers. First pitch is set for 3:10 p.m. EST, while the next two games are scheduled for a 1:10 p.m. start time.