Alec Burleson turned a night that looked lost into a blowout, hitting three two-run home runs as the Cardinals beat the Yankees 13-7 on Monday night. His last one sailed to the second deck in right field and finished off a seven-run eighth inning that flipped the game for good.
The comeback mattered because the Cardinals had already wasted a six-run lead before they got back in front. The Yankees had surged ahead in the seventh when Ryan McMahon and José Caballero went back-to-back, then Luis García Jr. followed with a two-run homer that made it 7-6. For a few minutes, San Luis looked like a team that had let the game get away.
Instead, the eighth inning became the kind of frame that changes everything in one rush. Nathan Church drove in three with a home run to put San Luis ahead, Jimmie Crooks added a two-run shot, José Fermín delivered a run-scoring double and Church chipped in a run-scoring single before Burleson ended the rally with his third homer. Seven runs in one inning is not a trickle; it is a takeover, and it turned a one-run deficit into a five-run lead before the Yankees could stop it.
The game also sharpened the contrast on the mound. Schlittler allowed four runs and four hits in three innings, while Michael McGreevy gave up two runs and four hits in 4 1/3 innings. George Soriano entered for the Cardinals and was tagged when García Jr. connected in the seventh, but Gordon Graceffo closed the door by retiring the final six Yankees batters and improving to 7-1.
Burleson’s three homers were the headline, but the broader point is simpler: the Cardinals did not just recover from one bad inning. They survived a game in which a six-run cushion vanished, then seized control with the kind of eighth inning the Yankees could not answer. The next question is whether Burleson’s power surge becomes a one-night jolt or the start of something bigger.
