The Yankees opened this series in Chicago by nearly beating themselves. A burned challenge on the very first at-bat, a ball Jazz Chisholm Jr. couldn't corral to nail Randal Grichuk at second, and Aaron Boone declining to challenge a play at third all happened before most fans had finished their first beer. Somewhere in the mess, Trent Grisham's replacement Owen Schuemann went down hurt too, adding an injury scare to an already sloppy frame.
A rapid-fire rundown of everything that went wrong for the Yankees in the opening frame alone.
1st inning recap -Burned a challenge first at bat of the game -Jazz can't come up with the ball to tag out Grichuk -Boone doesn't challenge play at 3rd -Schuemann hurt -30 pitches for Fried when he's on a pitch count Awesome
Max Fried was in the middle of it, and the timing couldn't have been worse. This was his second start back off the injured list, and he was still working to rebuild stamina and pitch count. Instead he got squeezed into a stress inning almost immediately, and the White Sox made him pay.
Chicago jumped on Fried for three runs before he could find any rhythm.
Fried settled in and battled through three-plus innings on 66 pitches, but the White Sox kept finding ways to answer. Colson Montgomery tied it again in the middle innings, turning what should have been a laugher either way into a genuine slugfest at Guaranteed Rate Field. Jazz Chisholm Jr., who'd been part of the first-inning fiasco, made up for it with a two-run double that kept New York in the fight, the kind of at-bat Marty Mush was referencing when he cracked that if this roster can survive all its injuries, "there's no stopping us in October."
The go-ahead moment belonged to Ben Rice. With two outs, a runner on and the previous two hitters having failed to deliver, Rice worked a tough left-on-left matchup and found a base hit to push the Yankees back in front, 5-4, in the seventh.
Rice's two-out single against a lefty flipped the lead back to New York in the seventh.
The Yankees still had to hold the lead, and their defense didn't make it easy. Anthony Volpe made himself useful and then some, cutting down a runner at home on a relay throw to keep the White Sox at bay in the seventh, a play that mattered plenty given how the rest of the night went. New York tacked on insurance late, and that's when the story of the night arrived: Ali Sanchez, a 29-year-old catcher who'd bounced through six pro seasons and five organizations without ever going deep in the majors, turned on a pitch from Sean Newcomb and drove a three-run homer to left.
Sanchez's first career home run, a three-run shot in the eighth that put the Yankees firmly in front.
Fittingly, even the finish had some chaos baked in. Volpe, the same guy who'd made the highlight-reel relay throw a couple innings earlier, dropped a routine pop-up in the ninth, a reminder that this was not a clean win even with the final score reading 9-5. New York got the result it needed, but the version of this team on display — banged up behind the plate, prone to defensive lapses, leaning on a journeyman catcher for a signature moment — is exactly why the front office is reportedly working the phones on catching help and pitching depth before the deadline.
Volpe's night came full circle when a play that looked routine turned into a dropped pop-up.
It was messy, it was occasionally maddening, and it worked out anyway — which might be the most Yankees version of a win possible right now. Sanchez gets to keep the ball. Fried gets another building-block outing in the bank. And the Yankees get to walk out of Chicago up in the series, chaos and all.