Bomber bats finally grand, Jordan solid in win over Orioles
YANKEES 7 ORIOLES 0
Yeah, he heard you. Giancarlo Stanton hears the boos. The Yankee slugger knows what the fans thought of his 0-for start to the season and heard the boos when he struck out over the weekend. But when his swing connects and Stanton is able to do the damage that only he can do to a baseball, he hears nothing.
“Sometimes — it’s not a blackout — but just there’s no sound on there’s no anything except me watching the flight of the ball,” Stanton said of what it’s like to crush a baseball. “I don’t know anything else is going on. It’s a very cool feeling. It’s hard to describe. It’s kind of like a blacked out zone.”
Stanton found that zone on Monday night. The Yankees’ behemoth slugger crushed a 471-foot home run to cap off an offensive resurgence as Jordan Montgomery pitched six scoreless and the Yankees shut out the Orioles 7-0 at the Stadium.
“It’s just different. It’s like nothing else he is a unicorn,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I mean, that ball was just so pure on a night where it’s probably not flying great, and just hits it through the stadium.”
Montgomery scattered four hits and struck out seven. He did not walk a batter. Luis Cessa also threw two scoreless and Aroldis Chapman, making his season debut after serving a two-game suspension to start the year, threw a scoreless ninth.
Aaron Judge hit his first homer of the season, an opposite-field solo shot to lead off the fourth inning.
It was just the eighth time that Judge and Stanton homered in the same game; the Yankees (2-2) are now 8-0 when that happens.
The Orioles had walked four hitters, so the bases were loaded with two outs when Shawn Armstrong tried to get a 92-mile an hour fastball past Stanton for the second straight time. Stanton connected, sending it back at 115.1 miles per hour over the seats in left-center field and on to the concourse. The 471-foot grand slam was Stanton’s eighth career grand slam and his third with the Yankees.
It was also Stanton’s first hit of the season.
He was booed on Opening Day when he struck out for the third time and even Monday night, when he struck out in his first plate appearance, the crowd booed him.
With Stanton it seems to be personal, a lightning rod for criticism when he strikes out.
“It was good to get that to get us going. And give us some insurance runs,” Stanton said. “I mean I try my best when I’m out there. So I’m can’t worry about all that,” he said of the booing.
For one night, at least, Stanton and Judge shut up the critics worried about the Yankees offense.
“I feel like we’re still rising and we have not kind of started clicking on all cylinders,” Judge said.
They certainly had not over the weekend, when they dropped two out of three to the Blue Jays. The Bombers went 4-for-24 (.167) with runners in scoring position over the three-game series last weekend and 10-for-47 (.213) with men on base.
It started with Judge’s homer, an opposite-field shot just over the fence in right field.
“People say it doesn’t weigh on you, but it does weigh on you sometimes,” Judge said of the slow start. “You get that first one, you get that off your back. It’s good to get that first one.”
And then Stanton got an even bigger one off his back. It was his first hit after going 0-for-8 to start the season and sitting on Sunday to rest. Boone thinks it can be a catalyst for the lineup.
“It was huge, obviously, to get some insurance at that time, in a really close game at the time and move it to five-nothing,” Boone said of Stanton’s grand slam. “And better at-bats all night long. We had a chance to break it open even more, we had more opportunities, more competitive at bats I felt like up and down the order.
“So hopefully, it can be a little springboard for the offense.”