It began with a ball struck with authority, Luis García Jr. banging a double off the wall.
The rally included the kind of well-aimed luck that has eluded them, Austin Wells’ pop-up into shallow right-center somehow not winding up in a Seattle glove.
And for the first time in a long time, there were hits — legitimate, real, ball-to-bat-to-outfield-grass strokes, the kind your grandparents fondly remember witnessing when they were young.
The frigid Yankees lineup finally broke through, stacking five knocks and one walk together to score four runs in the seventh inning to seize a 4-1 comeback victory over the Mariners in front of 41,407 frustrated, then frenzied, fans in The Bronx on Tuesday.
The Yankees (67-52) won for the third time in four games, a span in which Tuesday’s was the lone contest not decided by one run. So many games for the past several weeks have followed a script that featured excellent Yankees pitching, inept Yankees hitting and resulting late-game tension because neither side could create distance.
That is how the series opener began, the Yankees down 1-0 — courtesy of a Randy Arozarena sixth-inning home run off an otherwise excellent Ryan Weathers — after six and a half innings, during which the home team managed three hits, none of which came with runners in scoring position.
Until the game flipped with Seattle starter Bryan Woo removed. Against righty Michael Rucker, García scalded a leadoff double. Jazz Chisholm Jr., who even in this season of struggles has struggled acutely recently, found a hole on the right side of the infield to put runners on the corners.
A George Lombard Jr. strikeout felt as if it was the first step to another backbreaking inning, but after a Spencer Jones walk, Ryan McMahon lined a go-ahead two-run single through the left side of the infield to turn a one-run deficit into a one-run lead (and provide RBI No. 500 for McMahon’s career).
After Wells’ bloop single off Eduard Bazardo reloaded the bases, Trent Grisham found the same hole that McMahon exploited, smacking a single between third baseman Brendan Donovan and shortstop Colt Emerson to drive in two more.
Suddenly, the Yankees had a rally, a lead and a legitimate big inning: They had not scored more than two runs in a frame in more than a week, since last Monday’s 13-7 loss to the Cardinals in which they scored three in one inning and four in another.
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Their offense diverted from the recent script, but their pitching remained typically brilliant.
After Weathers’ dominance, Tim Hill recorded four groundouts, Brent Headrick struck out two in a clean eighth and David Bednar secured save No. 27.
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