Acquired in July to help the AL East champions in October, Leiter pitched 1 1/3 innings Friday night and got the win in Game 4 of the AL Championship Series as the Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 8-6 to move within one victory of their first World Series since 2009.
Leiter hadn’t pitched since Sept. 29.
“Booney kept telling me to be ready for anything and that there was a chance I was going to be used to get big outs and that’s the way it kind of fell,” Leiter said of manager Aaron Boone. “So I was just trying to stay ready and stay sharp and when my name was called, go out there and do my job.”
Boone was pleased with Leiter's performance.
“He did a great job, managed contact,” Boone said. “I thought he was really good. Unfortunately, he didn’t complete a play there on the tough little squibber, but I thought he threw the ball excellent and obviously in an enormous spot.”
Leiter helped New York's bullpen survive another rally by the Guardians, who came back from a 6-2 deficit to tie it in the seventh.
Leiter entered in the seventh to replace an ineffective Clay Holmes. His first batter was rookie Jhonkensy Noel, who hit a ninth-inning homer in Game 3 and put a scare into the Yankees by flying out to the warning track.
In the eighth, Leiter gave up a leadoff double to Bo Naylor and appeared to be out of the inning when he got David Fry to hit a slow roller toward first. But Leiter knocked down the ball and underhanded it one motion through first baseman Anthony Rizzo's legs.
The botched play aside, Leiter's outing could give Boone confidence to use him going forward since the Yankees will be without Hamilton for the rest of the ALCS — or the World Series if they advance — after he injured his left calf in Game 3 on Thursday night.
Boone said Hamilton suffered a low-grade calf strain while the right-hander covered first base in the sixth inning. The Yankees wound up blowing a 5-3 lead in the ninth and lost 7-5 to the Guardians, who got tying homer from Noel in the ninth and Fry's walk-off homer in the 10th.
Hamilton went 0-1 with a 3.82 ERA in 35 games for the Yankees this season. He missed nearly three months with a strained side muscle. He returned in mid-September and pitched in the ALDS against Kansas City.
In the sixth, Guardians rookie Daniel Schneemann hit a grounder to first baseman Jon Berti, who bobbled the ball. Hamilton hustled over to the base, and appeared to step awkwardly. He threw a wild warmup pitch before Boone replaced him.
Major League Baseball had to approve the Yankees' request to substitute for Hamilton, whose medical information was reviewed by an independent doctor. By rule, Hamilton will not be eligible to play in the World Series should New York advance.
Leiter struggled after coming to New York in a July trade from the Cubs. He went 2-1 with a 4.98 ERA in 21 games and was left off the ALDS and ALCS rosters. The 33-year-old was 2-4 with a 4.21 ERA in 39 games for Chicago.
Before the game, Boone said he was tempted to add left-hander Nestor Cortes, but the left-hander is recovering from an elbow strain and isn't quite ready.
“I felt like it would be unfair to him to skip some steps to get him back,” Boone said, adding Cortes is in position to be on the World Series roster if the Yankees advance.
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