THANK TODD!
Frazier’s funky-swing homer sparks Yanks
The Yankees had scored all of two runs in the first two games of the ALCS when Todd Frazier came to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the second of Monday night’s Game 3.
And with one mighty swing of the bat — all right, not mighty … not even good — the third baseman gave the Yankees their first lead of the series with a three-run homer off Charlie Morton.
The home run gave life to the sellout crowd in The Bronx — and to the Yankees in an 8-1 win.
As he rounded second, Frazier looked at his wrist, seemingly checking a watch that wasn’t there.
“It’s funny, they just saw this now, pretty much every home run I’ve done that with my hand,” Frazier said of the move. “I put my arm out and say, ‘What time is it?’ Just a little thing I do. I’ve been doing it forever. I guess TV just finally caught on to it. … ‘It’s my time.’ ”
He also pointed to the outfield, where Frazier said he had some family members sittng.
“They were scattered, but most of them were in the outfield,” Frazier said. “I got yelled at today. It was a big controversy [because] they weren’t in the family section. So now they’re going to have to sit there for the rest of the series after what happened today.”
It was a much-needed jolt for an offense that had gone quiet for much of the postseason.
Frazier, who entered just 5for-27 with two RBIs in the playoffs, delivered the big blow with an odd-looking swing. He was offbalance and appeared to have one hand on the bat when he made contact, but the ball carried deep into the brisk night and easily reached the seats in right.
“It was just one of those things where it hit, and you don’t think it’s going — just because how unorthodox the swing was,” Frazier said. “Guys throw really hard now and all you have to do is square it up in the right fashion and that’s what I did.”
The homer, Frazier’s first of the postseason, ignited the dormant offense, as Aaron Judge hammered another three-run homer in the fourth to left to make it 8-0.
That Frazier’s homer sparked the team’s biggest outburst since Game 2 of the ALDS wasn’t too surprising for the 31-year-old who came to the Yankees in the July trade with the White Sox that bolstered the Yankees’ bullpen with David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle.
“He brings energy,” Joe Girardi said of the third baseman. “He brings an excitement to play the game every day. He’s always cheering for his teammates in a way that you really feel that this guy believes in you and helps you get it done. He’s a leader in the clubhouse, I think. He’s got a ton of fight in him.”
And while Frazier hasn’t come up with too many hits during the playoffs, Monday’s homer was not his first important blow of the postseason.
Against the Indians, Frazier drove in the first run of Game 4 with a two-out RBI double off Trevor Bauer in the second inning that landed just fair down the leftfield line.
His ground-rule double in Game 2 also drove in the Yankees’ only run in a 2-1 loss.
The homer on Monday put the Yankees in a much better spot.
Girardi said all of what Frazier brings is important, especially this time of year.
“When you put those things together with his talent I think it makes him a special player and a special guy, and a guy you want to be around,” Girardi said. “And a guy that you want to watch.”