Diaz Goes Yard Twice as Houston Survives Yankees' Furious Comeback
Yainer Diaz hit two home runs, drove in three, and scored three times — then singled home the go-ahead run in the ninth on a Cody Bellinger error to seal Houston's 9-7 win. This game had five lead changes and a gut-punch eighth inning that swung the outcome entirely.
Houston jumped on Will Warren early. Diaz launched a 383-foot shot to left center in the second to make it 1-0, and Daulton Varsho's single to left plated another run in the third to push it to 2-0. Then Bellinger answered with a three-run homer to right — 368 feet — scoring Grisham and García Jr. and flipping the lead to New York, 3-2. The Yankees had erased the deficit in one swing.
Both teams kept trading punches. Varsho singled to right in the fifth to tie it at three, but Luis García Jr. immediately countered with a 379-foot homer to right, scoring Rice and putting New York back on top 5-3. Jeremy Peña responded in the sixth with a 385-foot two-run shot to left center, knotting it at five. García Jr. then doubled to right in the seventh to score Grisham and give New York a 6-5 edge heading into the eighth. The story of the night, at that point, looked like it was going to be García Jr.'s — 4-for-5 with a homer, a double, three RBI, and two runs.
Then the eighth inning happened, and it belonged entirely to Houston. Diaz led off with his second homer of the night — 356 feet to right — to tie it at six. Then came the decisive blow: Yordan Alvarez tripled to right, scoring Peña, and the win probability swung from 59% to 29% in New York's favor in a single at-bat. Paredes followed with a single to center, scoring Alvarez to make it 8-6. New York clawed one back when Chisholm Jr. singled to right to score Jones, cutting it to 8-7 and making things uncomfortable. But Diaz — who had already done everything else — singled to left in the ninth, Smith scored on a Bellinger fielding error in left, and Houston walked away with a 9-7 final. Diaz finished 3-for-4 with two homers, three RBI, and three runs scored. That's the kind of line that wins games by itself. The Yankees got a monster night from García Jr. and it still wasn't enough.