Judge shakes sleeping Bombers’ bats awake
STATISTICALLY? Nah. Spiritually? By all means. His April oblique injury prevents Aaron Judge from claiming team most valuable player honors to date in this 2019 Yankees campaign. Yet if you ever doubted how much the right fielder means to this franchise’s hopes and dreams — just to its initial goal of winning its first American League East title since 2012 — then let Tuesday night serve as Exhibit A. Not only did Judge snatch a Yankees victory from the jaws of impending defeat, his two-run, eighth-inning homer to right field against Tampa Bay’s Colin Poche catapulting the Yankees from trailers to leaders in this important division battle, but the blast, like Belle’s declaration of love at the end of “Beauty and the Beast,” seemed to break the spell cast over the theretofore dormant offense. Didi Gregorius’ grand slam put the finishing touches on an emotional, 8-3 Yankees victory over the Rays that also featured CC Sabathia’s latest skirmish with his team’s pesky challengers. “Just feeding off each other,” the ultra-modest Judge, who added a single and walk, said afterward. “We knew if we got a couple of runs, we were going to win that ballgame. That’s all we tried to do was pass the baton. Once we stayed in our zone and tried to attack pitches in the zone, we got out there and got a couple of runs.” You could count the triumph as one of the most important of this Yankees season, as it halted their losing streak against the Rays at three and lifted their American League East lead to six games, eight in the loss column, and negated Monday night’s stunning loss in which Mets outcast Travis d’Arnaud homered three times for the visitors. Which in turn makes Judge’s homer, which came exactly one pitch after he missed going deep by a foot or so
foul in right field, one of the year’s biggest hits.
How bad had the Yankees offense been going? In their prior six games, they had gone 4-for-44 with runners in scoring position, totaling 17 runs in that stretch. Through seven innings in this contest, against Rays opener Ryne Stanek and a trio of relievers, the Yankees had put only one runner in scoring position. And that runner, Gregorius, having reached second base with one out in the fifth, proceeded to team with batter Gleyber Torre to produce a ghastly, 6-5-4-3 double play, both players erring on the bases.
While Sabathia’s sixth-inning outburst against Garcia, the byproduct of a misunderstanding as well as the big lefty’s general contempt for the Rays, raised heart rates by bringing everyone onto the field, it’s not as though the Yankees immediately responded. To the contrary, even after Torres started the eighth with a walk, he stayed on first base until Judge came up with two outs.
His first swing on a full-count fastball from Poche sliced to the wrong side of the foul pole — “I thought it was going to keep tailing,” Judge said. “I was praying for it to stay straight” — and the next one produced a no-doubt-about-it shot to right-center field as the Stadium went nuts. And then, the truly remarkable awakening: A line-drive single by Luke Voit, who had been 2for-12 since returning from the injured list. A double ripped down the third-base line by Gary Sanchez, who was 4 for his past 46. And after an intentional walk to the hot Edwin Encarnacion, the grand slam by Gregorius, who was 1 for his last 23.
Asked if Judge’s homer created a “relief effect,” a liberation of sorts, Aaron Boone responded, “I think it’s more just good hitters going through a rough spell that you’ve got to keep pounding away. Keep grinding away at it.”
Precisely. A rough SPELL. Judge broke it. He turned the Yankees back around. “CC’s our leader,” Judge said. So is Judge. Even in a season when misfortune cost him so much time, he can lead these Yankees as far as they’ve been in a long time.