Yankees turn Cardinals’ woeful defense into ugly win to clinch sweep

ST. LOUIS — The good news for the Yankees is that they do not award wins on style points.

So while none of their three wins this weekend were overly easy on the eyes, they counted as wins all the same at a time when the Yankees desperately need to stack them up.

The Yankees broke a tie game in the top of the ninth by scoring four runs on only one hit, lifting them to an 8-4 win over the Cardinals that finished off a sweep at Busch Stadium.

With the help of two errors by Cardinals second baseman Thomas Saggese, the Yankees (67-57) rallied for their fifth win in the last six games.

The Blue Jays and Red Sox both lost on Sunday, allowing the Yankees to pick up a game on both in the division race, now trailing Toronto by 5 ½ games and Boston by a half-game.

José Caballero led off the top of the ninth with a high chopper to second base, and his speed forced Saggese to make a bad throw to first, which allowed Caballero to end up on second.

Then the first pitch to Trent Grisham went to the backstop on a passed ball, allowing Caballero to take third.

Grisham ended up grounding out to first, at which point Giancarlo Stanton pinch-hit for Ben Rice with lefty JoJo Romero on the mound.

Stanton had not played all weekend because of lingering soreness from playing the outfield earlier in the week and the DH spot tied up by Judge.

The veteran hit a couple of bullets foul before settling for a walk and being pinch-run for at first by Anthony Volpe.

Romero threw two balls to Aaron Judge and then intentionally walked him to load the bases for Cody Bellinger, who delivered a ground ball that ate up Saggese and trickled into right field, scoring a pair of runs.

Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a fielder’s choice that made it 7-4 before Paul Goldschmidt picked up the first hit of the frame, a double that drove in an insurance run.

Luke Weaver then threw seven pitches in the bottom of the ninth — after recording the last two outs of the eighth — to finish it off.

Will Warren had a grind of a start, which only lasted 4 ⅔ innings as he gave up three runs, though only one of them was earned as he did not get much help behind him.

The rookie right-hander, who got into plenty of deep counts but walked only one, left a 3-3 game in the fifth inning with the go-ahead run at third, but Devin Williams stranded him there.

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The Cardinals regained the lead in the sixth inning when Camilo Doval left a slider over the heart of the plate and Yohel Pozo crushed it for a go-ahead home run.

But the Yankees tied it back up in the seventh, as Grisham walked (with some help from home plate umpire Nic Lentz, whose strike zone angered both teams all day), Judge singled and Bellinger lifted a sacrifice fly that made it 4-4.

The Yankees did not have a hit until the fourth inning, though it broke the dam for a rally. 

After Chisholm drew his second walk of the day, Goldschmidt — playing his first game since spraining his right knee on Tuesday — roped a double into the gap off right-hander Miles Mikolas. Jasson Domínguez came up next and hit a chopper to second base that he legged out for an infield single, scoring Chisholm from third for the 1-0 lead.

Ryan McMahon and Caballero followed with singles of their own as a scoreless game became 3-0 in a span of four pitches.

The Yankees wasted a chance for more, though, as Grisham struck out looking at a pitch inside — which got catching coordinator Tanner Swanson ejected from the Yankees dugout — and Rice flew out.

The Cardinals then got two of those runs back in the bottom of the frame, which began with a fielding error by McMahon.

The typically sure-handed third baseman could not handle a backhanded play, allowing Ivan Herrera to reach base.

Warren got a pair of outs around a walk, but then gave up a two-run double off the bat of Saggese that carried over the head of Bellinger in right field.

An inning later, the Cardinals tied it up with an assist from another Yankees error.

Chisholm made a diving stop on a ground ball into shallow right field, but then unleashed an errant throw to first, which allowed Lars Nootbaar to end up on second.

One out later, Alec Burleson singled to score Nootbaar to tie the game 3-3.