Grisham continued a prolific stretch at the plate on Tuesday night, hitting his second grand slam in five days as the Yankees blitzed the Astros, 7-1, in the opener of a three-game series at Daikin Park.
Max Fried earned his 15th victory as the Yankees won for the eighth time in nine games to remain 2 1/2 games behind Toronto in the American League East. In joining teammate Carlos Rodón as the AL’s only 15-game winners, Fried (15-5) struck out five in seven innings, allowing a run on four hits and three walks and one hit-by-pitch.
Grisham, who hit a slam against the White Sox on Friday, went the other way with Framber Valdez’s fifth-inning sinker, depositing it in the Crawford Boxes in left field.
“I was talking to myself on deck, knowing it was going to be a big situation,” Grisham said. “Just really getting excited for that [but] getting really calm and really getting focused, just looking for a pitch I could handle.”
The Yankees have hit eight grand slams in 2025, including three by Grisham, who in his last nine games has reached base in 19 of 39 plate appearances with five homers and nine walks, while scoring 10 times and driving in 13 runs.
“It’s just an intent and level of focus I’m trying to get to,” Grisham said. “It looks different every day, but I’m doing the same things to try to get there. It’s a daily grind. Some days it’s easy. Some days it’s harder. But it’s relentless over 180 days, 162 games. Nothing different than usual. Just a good stretch, really, right now.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone won’t argue.
“I know he’s going to give me a good at-bat,” the manager said of his center fielder. “Right-, left-handed, whatever it may be.”
Grisham’s home run was only the third by a left-handed hitter this season off Valdez. The second came in the second inning, when Jazz Chisholm Jr. took the left-hander deep for a two-run shot to right field.
“Framber is a tough one, obviously, a tough one on lefties and a tough guy to get the ball in the air against,” Boone said. “So for two of our lefties to ride him out of the ballpark — really good at-bats by those guys.”
Chisholm added his 28th homer off another left-hander, Steven Okert, to close the scoring in the eighth. Chisholm also stole his 26th base, moving him closer to becoming only the third Yankee to produce a 30/30 season. He would join Bobby Bonds (1975) and Alfonso Soriano (2002, 2003).
Fried was the mound beneficiary of the Yankees’ three homers, not that he needed them all in scoring his first regular-season win over the Astros and beating Houston for the first time since the Braves’ Game 6 clincher of the 2021 World Series.
Despite feeling under the weather — “just a little nauseous,” Fried said postgame — the left-hander didn’t allow a ball out of the infield until Cam Smith started the fifth with a single, the Astros’ first hit.
Fried lived off ground balls in the first four innings, netting only two K’s. He then struck out the side after Smith’s single in the fifth.
“Just mixing my pitches,” Fried said. “Not trying to get the punchout, just trying to get groundballs, changing speeds, keeping hitters off-balance. That’s what I do best.”
Boone noted the Astros hit Fried pretty well in a 7-1 New York loss at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 10, saying they had “boxed him into some situations where they were hunting correctly.”
“I thought he mixed really well today,” Boone said. “I thought his breaking ball was good. He had a presence with his changeup, sweeper, sinker, four-seamer, cutter. He was very unpredictable. Stuff was good, [he] just managed the game really well.”
Fried, who has won his past three decisions since that Aug. 10 loss, also showed why he won three Gold Glove Awards with Atlanta. After giving up a walk and single to start the seventh, he darted to his right on a bunt attempt by César Salazar, catching the ball several feet from the mound before firing to first base to double up Mauricio Dubón.
“It’s something I take seriously,” Fried said. “If there’s something I can do to be the ninth defender, it definitely helps myself and the team.”
