The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Settling Old Business
Nationals top Yanks in completion of suspended game
WASHINGTON — Aaron Boone, baseball lifer, called the circumstances “a first rodeo for me.”
He wasn’t the only one.
At 5:07 p.m. Monday the Yankees and Nationals resumed their game from May 15, which was tied at 3 as the home team came to bat in the bottom of the sixth inning, the rest of that night washed out by rain.
Less than 10 minutes later Juan Soto, a 19-year-old rookie who introduced himself rather loudly to the Yankees with a two-homer game last Wednesday at the Stadium, got them again.
Soto, who started the season in Low-A before being plucked from Double-A May 20, hammered a two-run homer off Chad Green with one out in the sixth, the outfielder’s sixth homer in less than a month helping send the Yankees to a 5-3 defeat.
“I wish he was climbing the ladder more routinely and was in Double-A now,” Boone said with a smile afterward of Soto. “What can you say? Nineteen-years-old and obviously doing really well and has hurt us a couple of games.”
The loss gave the Yankees (46-22) a second straight defeat and lifted the Nationals to 38-31.
The clubs played a second game roughly 30 minutes after the conclusion of the resumed game.
The resumption of that game originally was to be made up before the regularly scheduled game between the clubs the night of May 16, but an unrelenting rain in the D.C. area also postponed that game, pushing the two contests to Monday.
“It’s been,” Boone said Monday afternoon, “an odd day looking at it all.”
To boot:
Tyler Austin, who started the May 15 game, batted sixth that night and hit a two-run homer and sacrifice fly to account for the first three Yankees’ runs, was optioned over the weekend and Neil Walker took over at first. Greg Bird, on the DL at the time of the first go-round here, was a bench option Monday, as was Clint Frazier, who was on the bench in mid-May, called up specifically for that two-game series to be a right-handed pinch-hitting option. Only Monday he was recalled from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, replacing Ronald Torreyes, who was optioned.
“Mendy came into my office when we first got here and was like, ‘Do you have your old lineup cards? Do we just cross this guy out or whatever? Frazier was here before but today we’re calling him up, how does that work?’ ” Boone said of Carlos Mendoza who coaches the Yankees’ infielders and is one of the safety nets for the manager when it comes to avoiding the kind of lineup error that befell Mickey Calloway earli-
er in the season. “Yeah, so there was some comedy there with it, but eventually we worked it out. Definitely a little bit unique.”
Green “started” the resumed game, meaning he replaced Masahiro Tanaka, whom Brett Gardner pinch hit for in the top of the sixth inning May 15, to face Bryce Harper. Green struck out Harper but allowed a one-out single to Anthony Rendon. Green fell behind Soto 3-and-1 before he launched a 97-mph fastball to rightcenter, the bomb traveling an estimated 433 feet near the top of the second deck, to make it 5-3.
Adding to the evening’s odds and ends: Soto wasn’t promoted until May 20. According to Elias, Soto’s debut will still be noted as May 20, though an asterisk will record his appearance in a suspended game May 15.
After the homer, Gary Sanchez doubled off Wander Suero with one out in the seventh but, after Sammy Solis came on, the catcher was doubled off second on Didi Gregorius’ line drive to left. Boone said it was not a matter of Sanchez losing track of the number of outs.
“That’s a bad read,” Boone said. “Simple as that.”