First Stanton. then Sanchez. then Judge – boom! 2, 3 and 4 hitters homered in the same game since September 20, 2017, when Judge, Sanchez and Tuesday’s two-homer hero, Didi Gregorius, did it.
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The Yankees enter play on Wednesday with a 3-2 record, 1.5 games behind the Boston Red Sox for first in the AL East.
The onslaught overshadowed a dominant Luis Severino. Andriese gave up a home run to Judge in the slugger’s first big league at-bat in August 2016. Tampa Bay fell to 1-5.
TWINS 7, PIRATES 3: In Pittsburgh, Brian Dozier homered for the third straight game, Miguel Sano drove in a pair of runs in frigid conditions and Minnesota handed Pittsburgh its first loss of the season. Austin Romine, starting at catcher with Sanchez at designated hitter, picked up two hits.
Didi Gregorius has been the best hitter for the Yankees in the young season; coming into Wednesday he had eight hits with nine RBI and six runs.
Giancarlo Stanton turned boos to cheers with his first Yankee Stadium home run in pinstripes, an emphatic go-ahead drive in the first inning Wednesday that led NY over the Tampa Bay Rays 7-2 to complete a two-game sweep. It also scored Brett Gardner, who singled to start the game.
Gregorius was asked to think back to April 2015, when he hit.206 in his first month with the Yankees and made several errors and baserunning blunders in his first month. It sailed about five rows past the fence.
“It was loud”, Aaron Judge marveled. He pitched 5.2 scoreless innings in a win at Toronto. Severino earned a win in his first start of 2018. In the first inning he battered a spinning slider that didn’t move the way it was intended, parking it an estimated 458 feet away deep into the left-field stands. He only saw a total of 24 pitches in his five ABs. His fastball registered 93 miles per hour in the ninth. He allowed five runs and four hits. Napkins and plastic bags dotted the infield and outifeld.
Despite Stanton’s shoddy statistical showing, Yankees manager Aaron Boone wasn’t stressing over the down day.
NY improved to 3-2 under Boone, who took over when Joe Girardi was sacked after a decade in charge.
“The thing here is, it’s not just us”, Sanchez said through an interpreter, referring to himself, Judge and Stanton.
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Thursday: Yankees righty Masahiro Tanaka (1-0, 1.50 ERA) vs. Orioles righty Andrew Cashner (0-1, 7.20 ERA). Didi just punched the New York Yankees ticket into the 8 by 8 club.
