NEW YORK – Jasson Domínguez beamed as he bounded into the wall of pinstriped energy enveloping home plate, his right hand flinging a batting helmet high into the evening sky. The Yankees haven’t experienced a snapshot moment like this in almost three years, and boy, did they miss it.
Domínguez authored what he slotted as one of the top moments of his young career thus far on Wednesday, launching a hanging Luke Jackson slider over the right-field wall and sealing a 4-3 comeback victory over the Rangers at Yankee Stadium.
“It was awesome; my first walk-off,” Domínguez said. “The first one is always special. As soon as I hit it, I knew that was my first walk-off, and I was enjoying it.”
It had been 974 days since the Bombers’ last walk-off homer: Sept. 20, 2022, when Giancarlo Stanton hit a game-ending grand slam off the Pirates’ Aroldis Chapman.
That blast capped a huge inning in more ways than one, when Aaron Judge joined Babe Ruth and Roger Maris as the only Yankees to hit 60 homers in a single season.
While the walk-off fact might seem like obscure trivia, Judge said he and his teammates were well aware, quipping, “They’ve always got MLB Network on in here. They love to show those kinds of stats on the bottom line.”
“The Martian” landed in the right spot to edit the digital crawl, digging in after the Yanks clawed back to spoil Jacob deGrom’s dominant outing.
Cody Bellinger’s seventh-inning homer began the climb, the sizzling slugger having extended his hitting streak to 15 games earlier in the contest. It’s a run manager Aaron Boone attributes to pitch selection and balance; “Simple as that.”
Bellinger’s blast snapped a string of 15 straight retired by deGrom. Want more symmetry? Bellinger has batted .383 (23-for-60) during the streak, and his blast off deGrom traveled 383 feet, per Statcast.
Judge tied the game in the eighth with a run-scoring single. After Luke Weaver worked a perfect ninth, Domínguez’s turn came with one out and history waiting.
The Yankees have been dreaming for years about plugging Domínguez into spots like this, nurturing him from a big-money teenage signee toward his splashy big league debut in 2023, then all the way back from untimely Tommy John surgery.
There have been flashes of success: the 22-year-old points to his first home run (off Justin Verlander) in September 2023 and his three-homer game against the Athletics just 11 days ago as his previous favorite highlights.
“It’s hard to beat those,” Domínguez said. “But [Wednesday was] top three.”
Rank them however you like, but the 398-foot blast off Jackson belongs -- and so does Domínguez.
“He’s fun to be around, because he’s got a good outlook on things,” Boone said, “but you’re really starting to see how good a talent he is. You see him run, you see the speed, you see the power. He’s gotten some big hits for us, too.”
Ryan Yarbrough heard (and felt) Domínguez’s homer before he saw it. The left-hander was in the home clubhouse with a few other teammates, watching the game on a delayed feed, when the announced crowd of 40,359 erupted.
“We knew something great happened,” Yarbrough said, and once the video caught up to Domínguez’s swing, the hurler said he and his teammates were “jumping for joy.”
It was a thrilling finish to a gritty contest, Yarbrough now taking regular turns in the rotation after shifting from a long relief and bulk role. Matched against deGrom, whom Judge called “one of the greatest pitchers of our generation,” Yarbrough embraced the mismatch.
Feeding the Rangers a steady diet of elbows, knees and moxie, the soft-tossing Yarbrough limited Texas to three hits, walking none and striking out eight; an impressive follow-up after Will Warren’s 10 strikeouts in Tuesday’s series opener.
Jake Burger hit the first of his two homers off Yarbrough in the fifth, offering deGrom fuel as he carved through the Yanks. When he made his 2014 MLB debut in the Subway Series, the former Mets star recalled seeing Derek Jeter enter the batter’s box, prompting the right-hander to think: “OK, this is for real.”
Different boroughs this time, taking on a different captain, and deGrom was vintage. Anthony Volpe’s second-inning triple was all deGrom permitted for a while; DJ LeMahieu cashed that run with a groundout, but the Yankees managed nothing more against him until Bellinger parked a dead-red fastball in deGrom’s final frame.
Burger hit his second homer of the game off Tim Hill in the seventh, a frame that also saw Sam Haggerty take Ian Hamilton into the second deck. It was all prelude for Domínguez’s homer and the wild celebration that followed, Judge and Volpe dumping ice water upon their teammate’s back, the best kind of evening-ending cold shower.
“He’s just becoming a solid, solid player for us,” Judge said of Domínguez. “If we’re going to go far and go where we want to this year, he’s going to be a big part of it.”