Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Yankees cap power display with Stanton’s grand slam
SAN DIEGO — Giancarlo Stanton hit a grand slam in the ninth inning for New York’s fourth home run of the game, and the Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays 9-3 on Monday in the opener of their AL division series at Petco Park.
Stanton homered to straightaway center field on a 2-2 pitch from John Curtiss. The slugger took several steps with his bat still in his hands as he watched the ball sail before beginning his trot.
“That SoCal air, man. That SoCal weather. That’s what it is,” said Stanton, who is from Southern California.
Kyle Higashioka and Aaron Judge hit the tying and go-ahead home runs off Blake Snell in the fifth inning to back Gerrit Cole. Clint Frazier hit an impressive shot into the second deck in left in the third.
The Bronx Bombers became the first team in American League history to hit a grand slam in back-to-back playoff games. Gio Urshela connected for a slam in Game 2 of the first-round sweep against Cleveland. Two NL teams have done it — the 1977 Dodgers and 2011 Diamondbacks.
“This is what I signed up for. This is the time where you’ve got to step up and do your job,” Stanton said.
Game 2 in the best-of-five series is tonight, with 21-yearold rookie Deivi Garcia set to become the youngest Yankees pitcher to make a postseason start. Tyler Glasnow goes for the Rays.
The Yankees set a franchise record by hitting at least three home runs in three straight postseason games. They are the second team to do so in baseball history after the Rays did it in four straight in 2008.
New York has hit 11 homers in those three games. They are the most for any team in the first three games of a postseason.
Teams that have outhomered the opposition are 13-0 in these playoffs.
Tampa Bay dominated the contentious regular-season series, going 8-2 against the rival Yankees and winning the AL East by seven games over second-place New York.
With the calendar flipped to October, it was a different story in their first postseason meeting.
“They can hit, there’s no secret in that,” Rays Manager Kevin Cash said. “There’s nothing that was unexpected with them. They’ve just got some guys back that are healthier. There were a handful of players who didn’t have consistent reps against us or throughout the 60-game season due to injuries. They looked healthy tonight.”
The ball was flying for the Rays as well against Cole. Randy Arozarena homered in the first and Ji-Man Choi muscled an opposite-field, two-run shot in the fourth into the Rays bullpen in left-center to give Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead.
Cole got the win by going 6 innings, allowing 3 runs and 6 hits while striking out 8 and walking 2.
Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young Award winner, was the loser. He went 5 innings and allowed 4 runs on 6 hits while striking out 4 and walking 2.
New York’s Aaron Hicks hit a sacrifice fly in the first and an RBI single in the ninth.
Arozarena tied it in the bottom of the first before Frazier gave the Yankees the lead in the second. Choi’s shot with no outs in the fourth put Tampa Bay ahead 3-2.