YANKEES AT FULL POWER!
Bombers keep bashing homers, beat Red Sox and have baseball’s best record
The Yankees have now scored 17 straight runs via homer, including all five in Saturday’s 5-2 win over the putrid Boston Red Sox.
With the win, the Yankees improved to a MLB-best 6-1 through seven games. Every other team except for the plague-ridden Miami Marlins has at least two losses so far.
Aaron Judge hit a solo shot in the first inning, giving him a dinger in four straight games for the first time in his career. It came off the bat at 110 mph and went a no-doubt 455 feet.
The next inning, Gio Urshela hit his first MLB grand slam. It was part of a stellar night for Urshela, who stole a hit from Red Sox catcher Christian
Vazquez in the sixth inning.
After hitting a near-record 306 home runs in 162 games last year, the Yankees (and MLB’s ball) have picked up where they left off. The Yankees have bashed 14 homers in seven games, accounting for about three-quarters of their runs so far this season.
Gary Sanchez had the secondmost homers on the Yankees last year, with 34. Through 15 at-bats this summer, Sanchez didn’t even have a single hit, against ten strikeouts. He finally got off the schneid Saturday with a second-inning single.
The homers were all the offense for the Yankees on Saturday, but with the pitching they cobbled together, two homers were enough. Masahiro Tanaka was on a pitch count after his season debut was de
layed by a violent Giancarlo Stanton comebacker to the head in summer workouts. Wearing extra padding in his hat, Tanaka gave up two runs (one earned) on four hits in 2.2 innings. That would have qualified as a dominant start against the Red Sox for Tanaka last year, when gave up 24% of his earned runs all season in just three starts against Boston. The Red Sox hit .533 against him last year!
With Tanaka looking good and touching 94 mph, he joked that he had a bit more in the tank. “Perhaps if the fans were in the stadium tonight, maybe my fastball would have had two or three miles an hour more,” he said.
“That's as good as a velocity on his fastball we've seen the last couple years,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Behind Tanaka, the Yankees got a stellar MLB debut from righty Nick Nelson, who went three hitless innings and struck out three. Nelson began 2019 with high-A Tampa.
David Hale put away the Red Sox with the final six outs. The Sox had the tying run at the plate with two outs in the ninth, but Boone stuck with Hale. Postgame, the manager said that nominal closer Zack Britton “just needed a day.”
Britton has only pitched two innings this season, one each on Sunday and Thursday of last week. Boone cited the fact that Britton warmed up several times in recent days. The Yankees, already arguably the most cautious team in baseball with relievers before this year, are likely being particularly careful after the news that reliever Tommy Kahnle will miss the rest of the season and may need Tommy John surgery.
The Red Sox were already decimated by their own front office selling off the players that won them the 2018 World Series, and they've received no breaks in their starting rotation. Chris Sale had Tommy John surgery in April, and more bad news hit before Saturday's game: projected ace Eduardo Rodriguez will miss the entire season due to coronavirus complications.
BABY TROUT ARRIVES:
Three-time AL Most Valuable Player Mike Trout is now a firsttime dad.
The Angels center fielder and his wife, Jessica, announced the birth of their first child Saturday, a boy named Beckham Aaron Trout.
The baby was born Thursday and weighed in at 7 pounds, 10 ounces. Little Beckham's middle name is undoubtedly a tribute to Aaron Cox, Jessica's brother and Mike's good friend, who died in 2018.
Trout left the Angels and was placed on the paternity list.