Andrew Velazquez knows the routes to Yankee Stadium all too well. The Yankees’ fill-in shortstop took them all as a kid growing up in the Bronx and coming to the ballpark as a fan. Back then, he dreamed of being like his idol, Derek Jeter, and making the big plays to be the hated rival of the Red Sox.
Wednesday night, he got to live it.
Velazquez drove in two runs and made a tremendous defensive play to end the game as the Yankees beat the Red Sox, 5-2, in front of a packed house at the Stadium.
His teammates gave him the championship belt and Velazquez gave a speech.
“I just said that I’m honored to be here and in that locker room with those guys and like I’ve dreamt of doing what we just did,” Velazquez said in his definitely proud New York City accent. “So in real life, it was way better.”
Velazquez’s diving stop of Kevin Plawecki’s two-out, ninth-inning ground ball that got past Rougned Odor sealed the Yankees’ season-high tying sixth straight win. The Bombers have now leapfrogged the Red Sox in the standings and are a half-game ahead of Oakland for the American League’s top Wild Card spot. They trail the AL East-leading Rays by five games.
It also gave Andrew Heaney his first win as a Yankee and he deserved it. The lefty who had struggled in his first two starts since being acquired from the Angels, allowed one run on two hits and two walks with four strikeouts over seven innings work.
But Velazquez’s play on both sides of the ball had him getting the honors from his teammates.
“He’s been great,” Aaron Boone said. “We were excited to bring him up. I think he endeared himself to our room in spring training. I think everyone enjoyed getting to know him and seeing his skill set up close.”
“He can really play short, but he has the defensive versatility to move around,” the Yankees manager continued. “You see the speed that he has and he can swing the bat a little bit. So he’s gotten some big hits for us here the last couple days and played really well in helping us win games.”
Velazquez had an RBI-single in the Yankees’ four-run second inning that chased Boston starter Nick Pivetta. He then had another in the eighth inning to give the Yankees some wiggle room.
“It’s been fun to watch and after the game he just said a couple words of him growing up here and dreaming of this and how much better it is in person. It’s special stuff,” said Anthony Rizzo, who drove in two runs. “And he got a big hit there. … Whenever you can score runs late, I feel like it just deflates the other team a little bit more.”
The Bombers would need it.
Aroldis Chapman — pitching in his first day back from the IL with elbow inflammation — could not slam the door shut. He gave up a one-out home run to Hunter Renfroe and then walked Xander Bogaerts. After he gave up a single to J.D. Martinez, Boone had to come out and remove him.
Lucas Luetge got his first save since August 2012, coaxing the ground ball from Plawecki. It got past a diving Odor before Velazquez dove to grab it, got up and threw across the field on a one-hopper. Rizzo, who was playing his first game after missing 10 on the COVID-19 IL, picked it to finish the game — after a review, of course.
“I was just ready for anything there, anything on the ground, and I didn’t know if Rougie was gonna make a play on it,” Velazquez said. “So just trying to see what was gonna happen there. And then, when I got to it I said, ‘I’m gonna throw it as hard and as low as I can, so that Rizzo can just pick it.’ If not, I would have thrown it in the family section in the second deck.”
In one three-game series against the Red Sox, Velazquez, who said he didn’t think he went to Yankees-Red Sox games as a kid because the ticket prices were too high, drove in four runs, surpassing his previous career total of three. Signed as a minor league free agent, Velazquez is living out his childhood dream — and doing like a true New Yorker by crashing with his parents to save money on rent.
“It’s like 20, 25 minutes away, depending on which way I go,” Velazquez said. “It’s a lot closer than staying in Manhattan. Cheaper, too.”
