Baby bombers miss chance to make mark
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Yankees youth movement looked great all spring, with Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird and Aaron Judge all putting up great numbers.
But in their first regular-season, major league game in the lineup together, the trio mostly flopped.
There was Gary Sanchez leaving five runners on in his last two at-bats, Greg Bird going 0-for-3 and misplaying a ball at first and Judge fanning in a critical spot in the seventh inning of a 7-3 loss to the Rays on Sunday.
“Those are moments you have to capitalize on,” said Judge, who crushed the first pitch he saw against Chris Archer for a runscoring double, but struck out on a slider from the right-hander with runners on first and second in the seventh.
“It’s missed opportunities,’’ the right fielder said. “We have to go back to what we were doing in the spring, when we kept the chain going. We have to keep that mindset going into the season.”
It didn’t help that Masahiro Tanaka gave up a career-high seven runs, putting the Yankees in an early five-run hole, but Sanchez first had a chance to get them back in the game in the seventh.
Three singles loaded the bases with two outs and Archer faced Sanchez having thrown 102 pitches.
The catcher nearly came through, but his bloop down the right-field line fell just foul. It would have scored at least two — if not three — runs. He then grounded to short to end the threat.
“That was a tough at-bat,” San- chez said through a translator. “At the last minute, [the ball] went foul. It is what it is.”
Then, with two on and one out in the ninth after Chris Carter’s pinch-hit sacrifice fly made it 7-3 and faint chants of “Let’s go Gary” could be heard in portions of Tropicana Field, Sanchez faced closer Alex Colome, but struck out. Bird followed by fly- ing out to center to end it.
“I definitely had people on base there those last two at-bats,” said Sanchez, who went 0-for-5. “I was trying to bring them in but I couldn’t, but now you’ve got to look forward to Tuesday and be ready for another situation.”
Joe Girardi tried not to place too much importance on one bad game — or on his star catcher.
Asked about Sanchez’s at-bats, the manager said: “I was OK with them. He hit a bullet in his first atbat.”
Per Statcast, that Sanchez comebacker that knocked Archer off his feet, but turned into an out, was clocked at 115.7 mph, his hardest-hit ball as a major leaguer.
“He’s not gonna be perfect,” Girardi said. “We have to manage expectations. My opinion [of him] hasn’t changed after one day.”
The same can be said for the team.
“It was good to get back out there,” Bird said of his first game since undergoing shoulder surgery before spring training last year. “We wanted to do it differently, but we’ll get them Tuesday.”