New York Yankees vs Seattle Mariners Match Player Stats On Jul 07, 2021

Aaron Judge hit his 20th home run of the season and the New York Yankees held on to defeat the host Seattle Mariners 5-4 Wednesday night.

Right-hander Luis Cessa (2-1) allowed just one hit in 3 1/3 innings of scoreless relief to earn the victory. Right-hander Chad Green pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his third save.

Judge's homer, a two-run shot into the second deck at T-Mobile Park, gave the Yankees a 5-1 lead in the second inning.

Seattle's Tom Murphy hit a three-run homer in the sixth inning to cut the deficit to one.

Mariners left-hander Yusei Kikuchi (6-4), who will be the team's representative at the All-Star Game, allowed more than three earned runs for the first time in 12 starts dating to April 23. He gave up five runs on eight hits in five innings with five strikeouts and three walks.

New York won its third game in a row overall and will look for a sweep of the three-game series on Thursday. Seattle lost for the third time in four games.

The Yankees scored three times in the first. Kikuchi issued back-to-back one-out walks to Judge and Gary Sanchez. With two outs, Luke Voit and Gleyber Torres lined singles to left, with Voit's scoring one run and Torres' plating two.

The Mariners got a run back in the bottom of the inning against right-hander Nick Nelson.

With one out, Nelson hit Mitch Haniger with a pitch and then walked Kyle Seager. Ty France lined out to center field, with Haniger tagging and taking third. Nelson threw a wild pitch on ball four to Jake Fraley, allowing Haniger to score.

After Nelson's third walk of the inning reloaded the bases, the Yankees brought on Cessa, who got Shed Long Jr. to ground out to end the threat.

The Yankees' Tim Locastro led off the second by legging out a double to shallow left-center. An out later, Judge went deep on a 2-1 pitch to make it 5-1.

Yankees right-hander Domingo German was scratched from his scheduled start after undergoing an emergency root canal earlier in the day, but came on to pitch three innings of relief.

The Mariners rallied with three unearned runs against German in the sixth. Haniger led off with a chopper that went under the glove of third baseman Gio Urshela for an error. An out later, France lined a single to left. With two outs, Murphy hit a 1-0 pitch into the Yankees' bullpen in left field to cut Seattle's deficit to 5-4.

--Field Level Media