Nothing separated the teams for six innings. Then the eighth inning opened everything up. Andrew Benintendi's grand slam to right center — 393 feet — turned a 1-1 tie into a 5-1 lead, and CWS walked away from Yankee Stadium with a victory that had been locked in a quiet stalemate for most of the night.
Sean Burke was the reason the game stayed close long enough for that moment to matter. The right-hander worked 7.1 innings, allowing 1 run on 5 hits, walking 1 and striking out 8 on 88 pitches. He improved to 4-4 with a 3.89 ERA, and for most of the evening he and Ryan Weathers were trading zeros in what amounted to a genuine pitchers' duel.
The scoring opened in the second when Colson Montgomery homered to center, a 420-foot shot that gave CWS a 1-0 lead. Ryan McMahon answered in the third with a 430-foot home run to left center, tying the game at 1-1. That was where the score sat until the eighth. Benintendi's slam — with Antonacci, Gonzalez and Peters all scoring — was the go-ahead play that ended the contest as a competition.
Weathers was solid in his own right, pitching 6.1 innings and allowing just 1 run on 3 hits with 8 strikeouts and 1 walk. He received no decision. Fernando Cruz entered in relief and was charged with the loss, his record falling to 4-2, after allowing 1 run in 0.2 innings as the eighth-inning rally unfolded around him.
McMahon's home run kept the Yankees in the game and moved him to 8 home runs and 23 RBI on the season. He is 7 RBI away from 500 for his career. CWS, despite the win, extended its losing streak to two games before snapping it here — the team entered at 38-34 and first in its division. New York, which had won four straight entering the night, fell to 45-27 while remaining atop its division.