Yankees Erase Two-Run Deficit With Three Eighth-Inning Homers

New York trailed by two heading into the eighth inning, then hit three consecutive home runs to steal a 4-2 win over Washington on Saturday. The story of the night was a single inning that completely rewrote the game.

Washington looked like it had this one locked up early. James Wood went deep to right center (388 feet) in the first inning, and Curtis Mead followed him with a shot to left center (388 feet) in the same frame, staking the Nationals to a 2-0 lead before New York could blink. Miles Mikolas then worked four scoreless innings, allowing four hits but zero runs, and the Washington bullpen — PJ Poulin and Tom Cosgrove — kept the Yankees quiet through the middle frames. Cam Schlittler, meanwhile, was grinding through 6.2 innings for New York, giving up those two early runs on four hits while walking four, though he did punch out six. Through seven innings, this looked like Washington's game to lose.

Then came the eighth, and New York turned it into a demolition derby. Ryan McMahon got things started with a 416-foot shot to right center, cutting the deficit to 2-1. That was just the appetizer. Trent Grisham followed with a 398-foot blast to right that also scored Caballero, flipping the scoreboard to 3-2 in one swing. That hit swung Washington's win probability from 68% to 27% — a 42-point collapse in a single at-bat. Paul Goldschmidt then put the exclamation point on the inning, going deep to left center (395 feet) to make it 4-2. Three home runs. Three batters. One inning. Final score: Yankees 4, Nationals 2.

Wood finished 3-for-5 with his homer and an RBI, and he appears to have done everything he could on Washington's side — the Nationals simply had no answer for what New York's lineup produced in that eighth. Grisham went 2-for-4 with two RBI and looks like the obvious headliner given the magnitude of his two-run shot, but this was genuinely a collective offensive effort: four different Yankees homered, and Ben Rice went a quiet 2-for-2 without leaving the yard. Washington's bullpen held up its end — Poulin and Cosgrove combined for three innings of scoreless, two-hit ball — but the damage was already done before they could finish the job. Sometimes one inning is all it takes.