Yankees 12, Rangers 11: Yanks cling on for extremely close one-run win

As it turns out, Brett Gardner is not the only hitter in the Yankees' lineup that knows how to drive in runs.

After falling behind by three runs in the 3rd, the Bombers exploded for a season-high seven runs in the 6th inning, adding more to that later in the game, as they would go on to beat the Texas Rangers, barely clinging on for 12-11 on Tuesday night in Arlington.

Following a two-homerun performance on Monday night -- both solo homeruns and the only runs scored by the Yankees in the game -- Gardner led off Tuesday night's matchup with a solo homerun to center field off of Rangers starter Nick Martinez, his 12th homerun of the season and third leadoff dinger this season.

Right-hander Brandon McCarthy was on the mound for the Yankees to start the game, and he was working well through the first 2 2/3 inning before the Rangers -- not surprisingly -- glued together a two-out rally that put them ahead.

Alex Rios and Adrian Beltre hit back-to-back two-out singles ahead of Jim Adduci, who hit a single to center field that scored Rios to tie the game. A batter later, after McCarthy threw a wild pitch that moved both runners up 90 feet, JP Arencibia doubled to deep right field, bringing in both runners to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead.

Two innings later, in the 5th, Arencibia, who had a monster night at the plate as the seems to love hitting against the Yankees, hit a solo homerun to right field off of McCarthy, making it a 4-1 game.

McCarthy, throwing 108 pitches, was able to make it through six innings, giving up the four runs on nine hits, while walking just one and striking out three. He picked up his third win with the Yankees, and has been quite a nice pickup by Brian Cashman.

The Yankees had runners on first and second base with one out in the 1st inning, but Martinez was very tough to score off of after that, going on a stretch of retiring 13 of 14 hitters before the Yankees' lineup finally woke up in the 6th.

Gardner, who has been on fire lately with four more hits in five at-bats in this game, opened the 6th with a double, then Jeter, who had two hits of his own, reached on an infield single to put runners on first and second with nobody out. After Jacoby Ellsbury popped out to the third base side, Mark Teixeira walked to load the bases. Carlos Beltran made it a one-run game with a two-run single into right field, then McCann brought in the tying run on a sac-fly to center field.

After Martinez walked Chase Headley, Ron Washington went to his bullpen, but that didn't help much. Zoilo Almonte greeted the reliever, Shawn Tolleson, with an RBI single, then Brendan Ryan followed with a two-run double that made it a 7-4. Back to the top of the order, Gardner hit a fly ball into the right-center field gap that was dropped after the center fielder and right fielder collided into each other, as Gardy reached third base on the play.

The Yankees added two more runs in the 7th inning -- which, both top and bottom halves, seemed to last forever. After loading the bases with nobody out, Headley hit a one-out single into right that extended the lead to 9-4, then Almonte scored Teixeira on a fielder's choice for the Yankees' 10th run of the game.

Texas, though, climbed back into the game in the bottom half of the 7th inning when Adam Warren loaded the bases with just one out. Joe Girardi brought in Dellin Betances, who is usually lights out as you know. However, the first batter Betances had to face was Arencibia, who made it a two-run game with a grand slam to left field.

Teixeira, in the 8th, came through with the hit that would end up saving the night for the Yankees. Making his first start in over a week because of a lat strain, Teixeira hit a two-run homerun -- his 18th of the year -- to push the Yankees' lead to 12-8, putting them back up by four.

Chase Whitley gave up a run in the 8th on a Beltre groundout, the David Robertson entered in the 9th to close out the game with a three-run lead. Robertson struck out the first batter of the inning before putting the next two batters on. He walked the bases loaded a couple of batters later with two outs, then gave up a two-run single to Elvis Andrus that made it a one-run game. After walking Rios to, again, load the bases, be got Beltre to fly out on a fly ball to the warning track in left to end the game.

That was wayyyyyyyy too close.

The Yankees and Rangers will finish up this three-game series on Wednesday night at 8:05 p.m. ET, when the pitching matchup will be Hiroki Kuroda against Colby Lewis at.

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