The three most important games of the Yankees’ season began tonight. It certainly was a tall order they faced, with Trevor Rogers and his 1.35 ERA on the mound for the Orioles. He had given up just three home
runs in 106.2 innings entering tonight, but the Yankees’ prodigious duo of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton said “to hell with that” and hit three home runs in the first three innings. They continued to tack on in the middle innings and the bullpen did its thing to secure the series-opening win, 8-4, as the team is now 51-7 in games where both sluggers leave the yard.
The first inning has been one of the biggest stumbling blocks for Will Warren in his first full MLB season. He owns a 6.19 ERA with 22 of the 76 earned runs he’s surrendered on the year coming in the opening frame with opponents batting .295 — those numbers fall to 3.88 and .237 in the subsequent innings. Therefore, it was encouraging to see him work a 1-2-3 first on 14 pitches including consecutive strikeouts of Jordan Westburg and Gunnar Henderson to close out the frame. Given the way the Yankees bats floundered against Rogers when they faced him last week, it became doubly important that Warren not cede an early lead.
When the Yankees faced the Orioles for four games last week, their lone loss owed overwhelmingly to Orioles starter Rogers, who pitched six scoreless allowing just one hit and two walks while striking out seven. Giancarlo Stanton made sure that Rogers wouldn’t have a repeat performance. After Rogers recorded a pair of quick-fire outs in the first, Cody Bellinger drew a walk to keep the inning alive. Stanton quickly fell behind 0-2, but he stayed through an elevated fastball away and lasered it into the seats in right for his 22nd home run of the year to put the Yankees up, 2-0.
It looked like Warren would be able to coast through his final regular season start as he retired the first eight batters he faced on just 34 pitches. However, things unraveled quickly when Coby Mayo reached with two outs in the third on a slow dribbler that Anthony Volpe could not convert into an out. The lineup then turned over to the top, where Jackson Holliday drew a walk to put a pair on. Warren quickly jumped ahead but then hung an awful 0-2 sweeper middle-in to Jordan Westburg, who scraped the wall in left for a three-run shot to put the Orioles up, 3-2.
That home run came right around the same time that the scoreboard showed the Blue Jays tying the Rays, 2-2, after two innings. Perhaps that sent an extra jolt through the Yankees lineup, because they responded with extreme prejudice to pick up their rookie pitcher. José Caballero drew a leadoff walk, and after a Paul Goldschmidt fly out, Aaron Judge restored the Yankees’ lead with a two-run homer that just cleared the wall into Monument Park, his 52nd on the year.
While a one-run lead was certainly welcome, you could sense that there was more hay to be made in the inning. Bellinger followed Judge’s homer with his second walk in as many plate appearances to bring Stanton to the plate with a runner on once more. This time, he didn’t allow Rogers to get ahead, ambushing an elevated first pitch changeup and absolutely demolishing it 451 feet to just left of center for his second two-run tank of the game, drawing him level with Carl Yazstrzemski for 40th all time on the career home run leaderboard at 452.
Having the lead restored seemed to settler Warren down for the next two innings, and he turned in a pair of scoreless frames. With his pitch count at just 79, it made sense to send him back out for the sixth, but he gave up a leadoff home run to Tyler O’Neill on an admittedly well-located 0-1 fastball up and away, and Aaron Boone had seen enough. Warren finished his day having gone five-plus, allowing four runs on six hits and a walk with seven strikeouts on 81 pitches. He finishes a strong rookie campaign with a 4.44 ERA in 33 starts, and his 171 strikeouts lead all rookie pitchers and are tied with Luis Gil for the second-most by a Yankees rookie in franchise history.
Mark Leiter Jr. was the first arm out of the bullpen and he didn’t make things any easier. Sure, he was unlucky for Dylan Carlson to reach on a fielding error by Goldschmidt, but a pair of walks to load the bases with two outs forced Boone to go to lefty specialist Tim Hill to get Holliday out. He did just that, getting the second baseman to roll over a weak grounder to first to leave the bases juiced.
This shift in momentum carried over to the bottom half of the inning, where the bottom of the Yankees order strung together several excellent at-bats against reliever Yennier Cano. Trent Grisham led off with a single pinch-hitting for Amed Rosario and advanced to second on a Volpe bloop single just beyond Holliday in short right. This brought the surging Austin Wells to the plate — nine for his last 20 coming into today — and the backstop delivered with an RBI single through the right side to plate Grisham and tack on an insurance run to make it 7-4.
After Hill retired a pair of lefties via ground outs to start the seventh, Boone called on Fernando Cruz for the righty O’Neill. Cruz worked into and out of trouble, issuing a pair of two-out walks before getting Adley Rutschman to fly out to strand the pair. The top of the Yankees order came to bat in the bottom of the frame an promptly loaded the bases with no outs courtesy of singles by Goldschmidt and Bellinger sandwiched around a Judge walk. Stanton then appeared to bounce into a tailor made double play, but for whatever reason Westburg decided not to throw home and instead settled for the out at first, allowing Goldschmidt to score the Yankees’ eighth run giving Stanton five RBIs on the night.
Camilo Doval has pitched so much better of late after a disastrous start to his career in pinstripes and entered tonight on the back of five straight scoreless appearances. He pitched perhaps his best inning as a Yankee, striking out the side in the eighth, all on nasty sliders. David Bednar made things interesting in the ninth issuing a leadoff walk to Jackson and infield single to Westburg to put a pair on with no outs. However, he found an extra gear and induced a Henderson force out before striking out O’Neill and Jeremiah Jackson to secure the save and win, 8-4.
Unfortunately, the Blue Jays also held on to win over the Rays, 4-2, despite Tampa putting runners on second and third in the ninth. That means they and the Yankees remain tied atop the AL East with Toronto in possession of the tiebreaker. All the Yankees can do is win out and hope the Jays don’t do the same, and this was the requisite first step.
Cam Schlittler starts the penultimate game of the regular season tomorrow facing Tomoyuki Sugano. First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 pm EDT with the broadcast remaining on YES.
