Starlin Castro hit a walk-off home run on the second pitch thrown by Colorado Rockies reliever Jason Motte to give the New York Yankees a come-from-behind, 9-8 victory on Wednesday afternoon.
Castro took a first-pitch fastball from Motte before clobbering an 81 mph changeup into the left-field seats to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning for the Yankees, who narrowly avoided a season sweep at the hands of the Rockies. The game-winning blast capped a five-run rally for the Yankees, who trailed 8-4 at one point.
New York got the scoring started in the second inning when Chase Headley launched a grand slam off of Rockies starter Jon Gray, who was not at his best from the start. But Colorado rallied back with a pair of runs in the top of the third on Charlie Blackmon's bloop single, then took the lead in the fourth on Nick Hundley's three-run homer off of CC Sabathia.
Colorado added three more runs in the fifth, two of which crossed the plate on a two-run homer from Ryan Raburn. But that was the last of the offense for the Rockies, who didn't reach base a single time over the final four innings of the game.
Meanwhile, the Yankees stormed back with a three-run homer from Carlos Beltran off of Jordan Lyles, who relieved Jon Gray in the fifth inning when the rookie left due to arm fatigue. Lyles tossed two scoreless innings before getting into the trouble in the seventh and eventually surrendering the big blow.
New York scored the tying run later in that same inning when Brian McCann -- who hit a left-on-left double off of Boone Logan with two outs -- scored on Didi Gregorius single on an 0-2 offering from Miguel Castro.
Logan's scoreless streak of 15⅔ innings came to an end when McCann crossed the plate.
Blackmon and Hundley led the Rockies with two hits apiece. Colorado heads home to start a four-game series with the Arizona Diamondbacks starting on Thursday, followed by a three-game set against Troy Tulowitzki and the Toronto Blue Jays.