Gary Sanchez, Luke Voit save Aroldis Chapman after closer blows save in Yankees’ win over Royals

Gary Sanchez saved Aroldis Chapman and the Yankees twice Wednesday night.

The catcher made a tremendous block on a potential wild pitch as the Bombers’ closer was imploding in the top of the ninth against the Royals.

Then with one good swing, Sanchez took Chapman off the hook and gave the Yankees life with his game-tying home run, setting up Luke Voit walk off RBI-single.

In his second game back from the injured list, Voit hammered a ball to left field, scoring pinch runner Tyler Wade to give the Yankees a 6-5 win over the Royals in front of 25,032 at the Stadium.

Luke Voit (l.) and Rougned Odor celebrate walk-off 6-5 win over Royals Wednesday. (Kathy Willens/AP)

It was the 20th come-from-behind win of the year for the Yankees (39-34) and their seventh out of their last eight games.

Chapman gave up two runs in the bottom of the ninth. He walked Sebastian Rivero with the bases loaded, after issuing an intentional walk to Carlos Santana. Then the Royals brought home the go-ahead run on a check-swing single by Ryan O’Hearn.

Chapman converted all 11 of his save opportunities to start the season. He did not give up a run until his 19th appearances of the season, May 23 against the White Sox. He’s allowed eight runs since then.

That completely erased the eighth-inning heroics of Rougned Odor, whose two-run homer had given the Yankees a 4-3 lead.

It was Odor’s eighth home run of the season and it was a rare case of the Yankees taking advantage of traffic on the base paths. The Bombers drew a season-high 11 walks, the most since 2017, but ended up stranding eight of those base runners.

After going 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, including with the bases loaded on Tuesday night, Clint Frazier came through Wednesday night with a two-run, game-tying double in the fourth. It was Frazier’s seventh hit in 39 at-bats with runners in scoring position this season.

It was the Yankees’ first hit with runners in scoring position since Sunday. They went 0-for-10 in those spots the night before. They were just 1-for-5 with RISP Wednesday night, with Odor striking out with the bases loaded in the second and Luke Voit doing the same in the seventh. The Yankees are 17-for-63  (.263) with the bases loaded this season.

They were battling back all night with Michael King continuing to struggle in the first inning. In five first innings, King has allowed 11 runs in his five starts this season and eight of those have come in the first inning. He has a first inning ERA of 14.40

Wednesday night it was a double to Royals catcher Salvador Perez and then a home run to Ryan O’Hearn that put the Yankees in a 2-0 hole.

King settled in and pitched 3.2 scoreless innings, but had to work for it. In the fifth he walked the No. 9 hitter, Nicky Lopez, and intentionally walked Carlos Santana before hitting Sebastion Rivero, who replaced Perez after he was hit with a foul tip, ending his night.

Chad Green gave the Yankees 2.1 perfect innings with one strikeout.

But Zack Britton gave up the go-ahead run to the Royals in the eighth on a solo shot to Carlos Santana.

Britton, who just returned to the team after March surgery to remove a bone fragment from his left elbow, had been unscored upon in his three previous outings.

But, he was unavailable on Sunday with “general soreness,” and the 33-year old said it’s been hard to get back up to speed without a traditional spring training ramp up.

“The physical stuff is just because I don’t have the stamina, the strength, I guess, you would say, to back it up, like I would in spring, having a 10 innings in spring training would have been awesome,” Britton said. “We just don’t have the luxury of that. But I feel good.”