– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — About 20 minutes before Fireworks Night began at Yankee Stadium, Harrison Bader’s bat let off the biggest bang, a sparkling firecracker that sailed deep into the left field bleachers and completed a rousing comeback to begin a massive series against one of the best teams in baseball.
Bader cracked a tie-breaking three-run home run in the bottom of the eighth inning, lifting the Yankees to a 6-3 victory over the Baltimore Orioles in the first game of a four-game set between playoff hopefuls in the American League East. Anthony Volpe and Kyle Higashioka had back-to-back solo home runs in the fifth inning to start the comeback, while the vaunted Yankees bullpen combined for 4 2/3 scoreless innings.
New York had tied the score at three on a wild pitch in the seventh inning by Orioles All-Star reliever Yennier Canó, and got the first two men on in the eighth inning: a single to center by Giancarlo Stanton off Canó and single to right by Anthony Rizzo off new pitcher Danny Coulombe.
Bader followed, and he squared to bunt for a sacrifice as he took a strike on the first pitch. Two pitches later, not only did Bader succeed in getting the runners over, he brought everyone home with a towering fly off a Coulombe slider that went 415 feet.
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