A pair of big home runs pace the Yankees to a big win
Every game carries so much weight in the season’s final week, with the Yankees still mathematically able to catch the first-place Blue Jays. With how much stress that could possibly put on us as fans, it was nice that the Yankees hit themselves into a big lead early, and just three pitchers were needed to ice out another win over the Orioles, 6-1 the final score.
You almost feel for Tomoyuki Sugano, almost. The Yankees put up a hitting clinic against the Baltimore righty, working seven 3-2 counts, making Sugano toss 87 pitches to finish just three innings. The player Tomoyuki himself described as being star struck by collected a pair of hits, a massive home run, and scored two runs against him. Better luck next time my man.
Sugano actually got the first two men he faced out, before Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger both shot two-strike singles into the outfield. Then Giancarlo Stanton continued to smash his way into the record books:
That’s Stanton’s 450th career home run, and he’s under contract for two more seasons after this. If he can stay on this level through the end of that deal, 500 should be doable — even, again, as you bake in that he will miss time.
An inning later, Judge continued his own pursuit of history, with his 49th home run in what may be an MVP season:
Even with Sugano out, the Yankees continued to tack on. Jazz Chisholm Jr. brought in Cody Bellinger on a groundball that just got past shortstop Gunner Henderson, and the Big Sleep himself chipped in in the sixth:
Meanwhile, Carlos Rodón matched his counterpart Max Fried by being an absolute buzzsaw, especially as the Yankees built their lead in the early innings. He gave up the definition of excuse-me hits in both the first and the second, soft contact that, because lefthanded pitchers fall off to the third base side, he was just a hair late to receive the throws from Paul Goldschmidt. Outside of that, he was pretty damn good.
Eight strikeouts against one walk, seven innings pitched, and only allowing a run in the final inning of his outing. Tyler O’Neil led off the seventh with the aforementioned walk, before Colby Mayo’s double jusssssst inside the line in left field let him come home and make it 6-1. It sure looks like Fried and Rodón are set to begin a postseason series for the Yankees, and you have to feel pretty good about those two guys going.
Luke Weaver had himself a good, albeit low-leverage appearance in the eighth. He’d been dreadful over his last six outings, and getting him back on track goes a long way to re-establishing the bullpen as a weapon for the team. David Bednar, who hadn’t pitched in a few days and with the off day looming Monday, worked a solid ninth to wrap up the win, and maybe give us a picture of what the back end of games will look like come postseason time.
Perhaps the best news of the day is the Blue Jays lost again to the Royals, albeit this time a more respectable 2-1 defeat. With seven games left in the season, the Yankees are now two games back in the division — three counting the tiebreaker. It’s not over yet folks, and that makes tomorrow’s series finale more important than your garden variety showdown with a fifth-place team.
Cam Schlittler will get the assignment, starting what might be the biggest game, in terms of division and first-Wild Card seed odds, of the year. He’s a joy to watch, but needs to keep it up against a team that the Yankees have shown they can handle. First pitch comes at 1:35pm Eastern.
Category: General Sports
