Boy, what do you say about this ball club?
After three players in a row against the Rays, and facing another potential team, it looked like Yankees They need to get back to squashing the ball, and not relying on their high-leverage arms for a night. And that’s exactly what they did, pounding four home runs to take their first game against the Blue Jays 12-3.
This was very one of those games that “hosted us in the first half, you wouldn’t lie”. The Yankee hitter had more than a few really strong appearances against Ross Streibling – Giancarlo Stanton, DJ Limahue and Jaliber Torres did well – they didn’t have much to show. Blue Jays player Gabriel Moreno opened the scoring in the second half, with a single song that took Toronto a 1-0 lead.
New York managed something off Stripling in the fourth round, as Torres continued his strong night, splitting the field on a double RBI that brought in a DJ. More evidence not to turn right), and the Yankees were ahead of themselves, but really felt it should be more than 2-1.
Well, enter the fifth inning:
I never thought that ball of Stanton’s racket would ever go off the court, however, and it did. 4-1 Yankees, metaphorically speaking, the dam broke.
I’m enjoying that the little flair to the right just held and carried was hit by Stanton, and the undoubted booming sound to the center left was my home DJ playing. Fun little reflection of what we might expect. Torres and Joey Gallo followed up with a pair of doubles, making the score 6-1.
After Aaron Judge purposely walked away, Anthony Rizzo threw the dagger for the second night in a row:
It was very interesting to compare Rizzo’s performance in the Bronx against him on the road. Heading to play today, he had 144+ at Yankee Stadium, and was below average on the road. At least tonight, he overcame those divisions, and his dinner plate was truly the knockout hit as the Yankees hit double digits for the eleventh time this season.
Not to get lost in all of this, Jordan Montgomery was also tough. He hit the first two men he faced, and before Alejandro Kirk scored down sixth, only Moreno managed to score a left kick. It’s a good sign for your season when you go six rounds, allow two runs, and the ERA really goes up, but he’s remained the unsung champion of the turn and possibly the entire team.
Manny Bañuelos came to work on a three-stop save, and it didn’t turn out well for him. Without much driving at all, he let go in 1.1 runs, walked twice against a one-hit, and generally struggled to make up competitive pitches:
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Bañuelos was a really nice story, he did nothing wrong in the seven rounds before tonight, but you wonder how long he’s been on the list. The club clearly doesn’t trust using it in almost any other scenario, and when you do get sparse rounds, you really have to make it count. He just didn’t.
Gallo capped us with one, if not one, of the cleanest swings that Yankee considered:
I said in the comments that home management is, to a large extent, the product of a good process. You just don’t hit a 400-foot baseball by accident. You can choose which pitch you can drive, and the swing of your feet should be all the way in line. Hopefully this process will be repeatable and Gallo continues to make this lineup even more risky.
With Banuelos out of the match, Miguel Castro and Lucas Lutej have covered the last five matches, and they have done so without any drama. The final score was 12-3, New York.
After tonight, the worst-case scenario is that the Yankees leave Toronto in nine games in the AL East race. They will have a tough showdown tomorrow against Alec Manoah, a 1.67 ERA who appears to have a deep and personal feud with the Yankees based on his four starts against them so far in his young career. Manoah is really good, but this is the best team in baseball and Jameson Tellon doesn’t compromise on himself, so my expectations are high. This person’s first show comes at 3:07 p.m. ET.