Aaron Judge’s home run pursuit will have to wait another day.
Tuesday night’s Yankees-Twins game in The Bronx was postponed due to rain and will be made up on Wednesday as part of a doubleheader.
The first game will begin at 3:05 p.m., with the nightcap to follow at 6:35 p.m.
The Yankees beat Minnesota on Monday in the first game of the four-game set, with Judge hitting his 54th homer of the season to lead the Bombers to a 5-2 win at the Stadium.
Domingo German (2-3, 3.12 ERA) is scheduled to pitch the first game of the doubleheader for the Yankees, with Gerrit Cole (10-7, 3.28) scheduled to start the second game.
Tuesday’s Yankees game against the Twins was postponed because of rain.Jason Szenes/New York Post
The Yankees, who have won their last two, currently hold a five-game lead over the Rays in the AL East.
A second straight Yankees win Monday did not come without another injury concern.
Giancarlo Stanton fouled multiple balls off his foot and ankle in the sixth inning of a 5-2 win over the Twins, and while he stayed in the game to finish the at-bat, Aaron Hicks pinch hit for him in the eighth inning.
X-rays were negative, according to Aaron Boone, but the manager was noncommittal about Stanton being back in the lineup Tuesday.
“We’ll just see what we got,” Boone said.
Boone and a trainer paid a visit to Stanton during the sixth-inning at-bat after he fouled another ball out of play and came up hobbling. He remained in the game and grounded out.
Yankees designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton (27) is checked on by manager Aaron Boone (17) and a trainer.Bill Kostroun/New York Post
“I think it was when he was planting, it was just bothering him,” Boone said. “But nothing more.”
Stanton is less than two weeks removed from missing 28 games with left Achilles tendinitis, but Boone said Monday’s issues had nothing to do with that.
Before exiting the game, Stanton went 0-for-3 with three groundouts. The first two were missiles at 104.3 mph and 108.9 mph, but hit right at infielders.
“For being as powerful as he is, he is a guy that hits the ball on the ground and on a line a lot,” Boone said. “Even when he’s come back, so far a lot of his — he’s probably hit about eight to 10 balls, rockets on the ground. Some for hits, two today right at guys. So he’s been a little unlucky in that way.
“He tends to, because of how his swing is, be a little more line drive, a lot more one-hopper ground balls and things like that. It has been a little bit that way since coming back, but I think it’s more for G just finding that really good timing.”
Despite Stanton’s slow start back, the Yankees could ill afford him missing more time, especially with Anthony Rizzo (back) and DJ LeMahieu (toe) already beat up and Andrew Benintendi (broken hamate) set for surgery on Tuesday.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — If ever the Yankees were in need of a good start, it was Sunday, with the offense inept and their lead in the AL East slipping away.
Frankie Montas delivered, tossing five shutout innings in the Yankees’ 2-1 win over the Rays, in his best start since arriving in a trade from the A’s in July.
The right-hander, who had a 7.01 ERA in his first five starts as a Yankees, was much better on Sunday.
“I wouldn’t say [I felt] pressure,’’ Montas said. “I wanted to keep the team in the game.”
While he was excellent, Montas wasn’t especially efficient.
Despite giving up just one hit — and no walks — he needed 93 pitches to get through his outing before being replaced by Lou Trivino, who tossed a scoreless sixth.
Trivino, Ron Marinaccio and Jonathan Loaisiga backed up Montas with three scoreless innings before Clay Holmes allowed a run in the bottom of the ninth before picking up the save.
Frankie Montas pitches on Sunday during the Yankees’ win over the RaysGetty Images
Boone and the Yankees were already frustrated by a call in the top of the inning, when DJ LeMahieu popped out and the Yankees thought the ball hit the screen behind the plate before Christian Bethancourt caught it.
The Yankees ended up challenging the play, which was confirmed, so they couldn’t ask for a review when Taylor Walls was awarded first base on catcher’s interference.
An exasperated Boone argued with home plate umpire Vic Carapazza and as he headed back to the dugout, was tossed for the seventh time this season.
Boone defended Josh Donaldson, who had a heated reaction when he was nearly hit by a pitch up and in during the second inning. Benches cleared briefly and both teams were warned, but there were no other issues. The Rays visit the Yankees for another series in The Bronx on Friday.
“It gets your attention,’’ Boone said of getting a pitch thrown near your head. “It was the heat of the moment.”
Benches cleared after Josh Donaldson took offense to an inside pitch. AP
Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s woes at shortstop aren’t going away, as he booted another routine grounder for an error in the first and nearly threw a ball away on another easy play in the third, but was saved by a leaping grab by LeMahieu at first.
He made two good plays on the run later in the game, further evidence that he struggles more on routine plays than on more difficult chances.
Boone said still hoped to have Rizzo go through baseball activities on Monday with a potential return to the lineup on Wednesday.
Boone said again the team isn’t considering an injured list stint for Rizzo, who has missed games due to lower-back issues three times in the past two months.
“He felt good [Saturday],’’ Boone said. “They were being really careful the first couple days after he had to fly across the country.”
Nestor Cortes is slated to rejoin the rotation Thursday against Minnesota in The Bronx after coming off the 15-day IL due to a groin strain.
Scott Effross still has some hurdles to clear before he can rejoin the bullpen. Boone said the right-hander, on the IL with a shoulder strain, has started a throwing program with a target date of Friday for his first bullpen session since the injury.
Zack Britton reported no problems on Sunday following his rehab appearance on Saturday for Low-A Tampa.
At this point, you don’t even need to hear the words or listen to the explanations — and what are they going to say, anyway? How are the Yankees going to describe what has happened to this season that was such a dream-cast just 15 minutes ago? How do you explain the inexplicable?
No. All you need to do is look at the eyes. Look at the faces. Look at the Yankees in the dugout these days, looking tortured, looking troubled, looking utterly bewitched and bewildered by what’s happening to them. They lost again Saturday night to Tampa Bay, 2-1. Their lead in the AL East is down to four games. It’s three in the loss column.
It is no longer an abstract notion that the Yankees could collapse.
They are collapsing. Their eyes tell you that much. Their body language tells you that much. And if any of the Yankees were given truth serum, maybe what they’d do is channel an old Red Sox shortstop named Rick (Rooster) Burleson who, after the fourth game of the Boston Massacre 44 years ago, shook his head and gave one of the most honest quotes in the history of quotes.
“Every day,” Burleson said, “you sit in front of your locker and ask God, ‘What the hell is going on?’ ”
What the hell is going on?
Hell, that’s what’s going on. Baseball hell. The Yankees are in such a collective hitting funk it actually felt like a positive consolation prize when Aaron Judge slammed a home run — No. 52 — in the ninth inning Saturday, snapping a 21-inning scoring drought for the Yankees.
Aaron Judge and Aaron BooneAP; Getty Images
The Yankees are living under such a dark cloud that it didn’t matter a bit that the Rays tried their best to hand them a freebie, making a couple of awful errors early, running themselves out of what should’ve been a seventh inning rife with insurance runs. Didn’t matter. Doesn’t matter. The Yankees are in such a bad place they aren’t even accepting gifts.
None of this makes sense. Not a bit of it. The Yankees are still the better team on paper in just about every game they play. But they are also showing a skin that’s paper-thin. A five-game winning streak from Aug. 21-26 that seemed to have halted all the negative mojo feels like it happened months ago.
And every day, they sit in the dugout, sit in front of their lockers, and bear a look that distinctly asks: “What the hell is going on?”
Or, as manager Aaron Boone said: “If we don’t dig ourselves out, you’ll have a great story.”
Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt allowed just two runs, but still suffered the loss.USA TODAY Sports
Great, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. The Yankees don’t want any part of that story. Yankees fans want no part of that story. Yet every day is a fresh chapter. Every day is a case study in a team trapped in its own head. Every game is a thesis in just how easy it is to lose baseball games once you hit the slippery slope.
“There has to be some level of relaxing a little bit,” Boone said. “Walking that fine line in a failing game. We’ve got to be tough-minded right now.”
Boone speaks of winning small victories now, of winning at-bats, of working counts, of stacking quality at-bats. It is sound strategy, sure, one that sounds perfectly reasonable in the quiet of a postgame manager’s office. And one that can sometimes be difficult to translate in a game
Right now, it feels as if the Yankees are trying to translate the Dead Sea Scrolls.
“We’re not where we want to be,” Giancarlo Stanton said, “but we still have a fine opportunity.”
Said Boone: “It’s right there. We have the same conversation every day. We’ve got to find a way, we’ve got to score. We’ve got thing right here to grab and take and we’re still in control of that.”
Through much of August, that’s what sustained the Yankees: As bad as they were playing, they’d built such a cushion that they should be able to right themselves and not have to spend one moment sweating. But they are sure sweating now.
They sure look perplexed in the dugout, and in the postgame clubhouse, trying to explain away one loss after another, trying to make sense of how 15 ½ games became four. No need to ask if the Yankees can collapse. They are collapsing. There are still 29 games to go, still plenty of time to right the ship.
ANAHEIM, Calif. — For a team that was on a historic win pace for much of the first half of the season and entered Wednesday with a seven-game lead in the AL East, the Yankees have quite a bit of uncertainty in their outfield — both for the stretch run and looking ahead to next year.
Aaron Judge can be a free agent. Aaron Hicks still has three years and $30 million left on his contract but has become a little-used bench player. Giancarlo Stanton’s persistent leg issues prevent him from being a regular presence in the outfield.
They also have Harrison Bader, the return from St. Louis for Jordan Montgomery, a defensive specialist who hasn’t even played in any rehab games as he comes back from plantar fasciitis.
Then there’s Andrew Benintendi, acquired from Kansas City before the trade deadline to provide some much-needed consistency and balance to the offense from the left side.
Benintendi is also set to be a free agent after this season and said this week hasn’t given much thought to his plans for next year.
Andrew BenintendiAP
“Not at all,’’ Benintendi said before going 0-for-4 in the Yankees’ 3-2 loss to the Angels. “I’ll worry about that once the season is over. There’s only a month or so left and I want to keep the focus here.”
Though the Yankees scored more than four runs just twice in their previous nine games heading into Wednesday’s series finale, Benintendi has given them what they’d hoped for over that stretch, going 13-for-36, with two doubles, two homers, seven RBIs, just four strikeouts and an OPS of .968.
That came after his first 22 games with the Yankees, when the 28-year-old hit just .192 (14-for-73), with no homers, five RBIs and 19 strikeouts with an OPS of just .604.
Benintendi said not much has changed to cause the improved performance.
“I haven’t changed my approach or made adjustments,” Benintendi said. “I just do what’s worked before.”
During his first weeks as a Yankee, one part of his game told him he wasn’t right at the plate.
“I was striking out and fouling off pitches that I should have been hitting, so I knew I was off,’’ Benintendi said. “That’s not my game. When I strike out, I know I’m not going good.”
Joey Gallo was smiling. He was laughing. He was …. happy?
“Our vibe here is laid back, try to win games, try not to make it more than anything than just baseball,” the former Yankee said. “I think that’s been nice. It’s been good so far.”
Since being traded by the Yankees on Aug. 2, where he was benched after intense struggles and fan animosity, Gallo has performed well for the Dodgers — albeit in an extremely small sample size. He’s hitting .196/.339/.478 with an .818 OPS and three home runs and eight RBIs in 46 at-bats.
Joey Gallo drives in a run after getting a hit by a pitch during the third inning of the Mets’ 4-3 loss to the Dodgers.N.Y. Post: Charles Wenzelberg
He was batting fifth for the team with the best record in the sport on Tuesday against the Mets, a sign of what the Dodgers think of the left-handed hitting slugger.
“They’ve seen some things they think they can make me better at,” Gallo said after the Dodgers’ 4-3 win. “It doesn’t happen overnight, but when I first got there to LA, it was, ‘Hey, we’re just going to work on the process with you and get you back to who you are and who you can be.’ ”
Very little, if anything, went right for Gallo with the Yankees after coming over from the Rangers prior to last year’s trade deadline. This season, he became an albatross, striking out 106 times in 233 trips to the plate while batting .159. He became the object of loud and frequent boos, and even said previously he didn’t want to show his face around the city.
“Sometimes a change of scenery helps,” Gallo said. “There was nothing the Yankees were doing wrong. I just didn’t play well there. I wish I played better.”
He did struggle in the Dodgers’ recent series with the Marlins, going 0-for-9 with four strikeouts, and was hitless Tuesday night but did get an RBI on a hit by pitch with the bases loaded. But the free agent-to-be has been far more productive with them than he was with the Yankees. Ironically, since acquiring Gallo, the Dodgers are 14-4 when he appears in a game while the Yankees have scuffled, managing an 8-16 mark heading into Tuesday’s game in Anaheim.
Gallo has kept tabs on them. He congratulated Aaron Judge on his 50th home run over text message on Tuesday and is rooting for his old teammates to do well. There is a chance Gallo can see them again this year, if both teams advance to the World Series. He wouldn’t mind a reunion.
“I get a ring either way,” he joked. “My chances there go up a little bit. I want the best for those guys. I love those guys over there. It would be exciting obviously to play them.”
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Aaron Judge made history on Monday night, becoming just the third Yankee to reach the 50-homer milestone multiple times in his career.
But it was his main challenger for AL MVP — Shohei Ohtani — who had the biggest blast of the night, as Ohtani’s two-run homer in the fifth put the Angels ahead for good in their 4-3 win at Angel Stadium.
Josh Donaldson’s pinch-hit single with two outs in the ninth gave the Yankees some life before Oswaldo Cabrera flied out to deep center to end it.
It sent the Yankees to their third straight loss after a five-game winning streak that now seems a distant memory.
Frankie Montas gave up three homers — tied for a career high — and for a fourth consecutive game, the Yankees couldn’t score more than three runs.
It left the Yankees seven games ahead of the second-place Rays in the AL East, which is as small as their lead has been in the division since June 5.
Shohei Ohtani hits a two-run homer in the fifth inning. Getty Images
Montas entered with a 1.20 ERA in five starts in Anaheim, his best mark at any ballpark, but that previous success didn’t carry over into Monday night.
Against an Angels team that just swept Toronto after losing nine of its previous 10 games, Montas gave up a leadoff homer to Luis Rengifo in the bottom of the second, as the Yankees fell behind, 1-0.
After left-hander Jose Suarez retired the first seven batters of the game, Isiah Kiner-Falefa walked and Cabrera singled down the right-field line to put runners on the corners for the Yankees.
Frankie Montas pitches on Monday during the Yankees’ loss to the Angels. AP
DJ LeMahieu, one of many slumping Yankees, then laid down a safety squeeze bunt to score Kiner-Falefa. It was another indication of how bad the Yankee offense has been, that they bunted with their leadoff hitter.
Judge was walked intentionally before Andrew Benintendi grounded out to end the inning.
The Yankees went ahead with Rizzo’s two-out solo shot to right in the fourth.
It was Rizzo’s first homer since Aug. 17 and just his second since Aug. 2.
Shohei Ohtani, left, celebrates after his home run. USA TODAY Sports
Former Yankee Mike Ford answered with his first homer of the season with one out in the bottom of the inning.
Kiner-Falefa opened the fourth with a double to left-center, but Cabrera struck out and LeMahieu grounded to third, keeping Kiner-Falefa at second. Judge was walked intentionally for a second time and Benintendi flied to right.
Ohtani’s blast to right-center gave the Angels their first lead of the night, 4-2. It was Ohtani’s 29th homer of the season.
Judge got the Yankees back to within a run, but Suarez — who gave up just two runs in six innings — and the Angels’ bullpen did enough to keep the struggling Yankee offense down.
Aaron Judge hit his 50th home run Monday night. AP
Gleyber Torres went hitless again and made a careless mistake in the bottom of the seventh, when he failed to touch second base on what should have been an inning-ending double play.
And Montas, the team’s consolation prize when they couldn’t land top target Luis Castillo, now has a 7.01 ERA in five starts as a Yankee.
OAKLAND, Calif. — After the Yankees were two outs away from a sixth straight win, they blew a lead in the 10th and lost to the hapless A’s, 3-2, in the 11th Saturday night.
The A’s scored the winning run when DJ LeMahieu made a throwing error on what should have been an inning-ending double play on Chad Pinder’s ground ball.
LeMahieu’s wild throw after the feed from Isiah Kiner-Falefa got by Anthony Rizzo at first and allowed automatic runner Shea Langeliers to score with one out in the 11th.
Trivino walked Seth Brown to lead off the 11th and was checked on by the trainers.
Stephen Vogt (right) celebrates with Chad Pinder after belting the game-tying homer in the 10th inning of the Yankees’ 3-2, 11-inning loss to the A’s. AP
The Yankees had their chances earlier, as Ron Marinaccio allowed a game-tying, two-run homer to pinch-hitter Stephen Vogt with one out in the bottom of the 10th, which wasted a two-run rally in the top of the inning, as well as a terrific outing from Domingo German, who tossed 7 ²/₃ shutout innings.
Since second-place Tampa Bay also lost on Saturday, the Yankees’ lead in the AL East remained at 8 ¹/₂ games.
Perhaps worst of all, the Yankees got just one hit in the 11 innings.
They were able to take advantage of some wild pitching by A.J. Puk to score a pair of runs in the top of the 10th. Andrew Benintendi opened the inning by bunting right back to Puk, who threw out automatic runner Kyle Higashioka at third. Aaron Judge struck out, and Benintendi stole second. Josh Donaldson was walked intentionally, and Puk drilled Rizzo high on the shoulder to load the bases.
A clearly rattled Puk then nearly threw wildly with LeMahieu at the plate, but acrobatic catcher Sean Murphy saved him. But Murphy couldn’t bail Puk out later in the at-bat as a wild pitch got away from him to allow Benintendi to put the Yankees ahead.
Murphy’s flip to Puk at the plate was errant, and Donaldson came around to score a second run on the error.
The 10th-inning dramatics came after German and Oakland right-hander Adam Oller both took no-hitters into the sixth inning.
Anthony Rizzo gets hit by a pitch in the 10th inning of the Yankees’ loss.USA TODAY Sports
In front of a crowd of 36,529 at Oakland Coliseum — many of the fans there for a postgame drone show — the Yankees didn’t get a hit until Oswaldo Cabrera doubled to right-center to open the top of the sixth.
He was then thrown out trying to steal third, when Oller stepped off the mound and fired to third.
Oller allowed just one hit in his eight shutout innings and faced the minimum number of batters.
After Judge made a nice play in center on a long fly ball by Cal Stevenson in the bottom of the sixth, German gave up an infield hit on a comebacker by Nick Allen and threw the ball away, allowing Allen to get to second, but German retired the next two batters.
Earlier in the game, Cabrera was robbed of an extra-base hit in right by Chad Pinder, who crashed into the wall as he made the catch.
Oakland’s only base runner until the sixth came when German hit Jonah Bride with a pitch to lead off the bottom of the third.
The Yankees barely even hit any balls hard off of Oller, who entered the game with an ERA of 6.41, but had pitched better in his previous three starts. Yet he certainly didn’t seem like a likely candidate to shut down the Yankees.
German was even more dominant, needing just 48 pitches to get through five innings.
He allowed a one-out double to Stevenson in the eighth and Stevenson moved to third on a grounder to second by Allen before being replaced by Jonathan Loaisiga, who got Tony Kemp to ground out to end the inning.
Three wins can’t fully erase a rough monthlong slide, but perhaps they can send the Yankees on their way out of it.
For the first time in a while, the Yankees were feeling good about themselves Tuesday night after they finished off a two-game sweep of the Mets. That series victory followed a win Sunday over the Blue Jays, and gave the Yankees a three-game winning streak for the first time since July 28-30.
The Yankees’ mojo had largely gone missing during a 9-20 stretch coming out of the All-Star break (at which point they were still playing at a 113-win pace), especially during the more recent 2-9 skid in which their offense went ice cold. But they looked like a team that was starting to rediscover it over their last three games.
Giancarlo Stanton is expected to return to the Yankees’ lineup against the A’s. N.Y. Post/Charles Wenzelberg
Now, they will have a chance to reinforce that winning feeling — and to get Giancarlo Stanton back from the injured list to help — when they open a four-game series against the last-place Athletics on Thursday in Oakland, Calif., before visiting the struggling Angels next week.
“I think it’s tough to have a little bit of swagger when you keep losing games and dropping series and not playing your brand of baseball,” Aaron Judge said late Tuesday night before the Yankees flew west. “But I think the swagger’s always been there. I think it just took a little reminder of who we are and what type of baseball we play and going back to doing the basics. We got it back.”
Of course, it helps that Judge has returned to MVP form. After he went through a small rut while the rest of the lineup was also struggling, Judge crushed a home run in each of the two wins over the Mets.
“The dude is pretty much the best hitter right now,” Frankie Montas said after turning in his best start as a Yankee on Tuesday night.
In addition to Judge’s resurgence and signs that Montas is settling in, the Yankees have recently displayed other reasons to believe that they might just be emerging from their funk.
They played two mostly crisp games against the Mets, with their strong defense flashing once again — especially on a pair of double plays between Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gleyber Torres on Tuesday night. There was a dropped pop-up between Oswaldo Cabrera and Marwin Gonzalez in right field on Monday and Torres (unsuccessfully) racing Jeff McNeil to second base while allowing Pete Alonso to score from third on Tuesday, but manager Aaron Boone attributed both to the amped-up crowd noise.
Timely hits from Andrew Benintendi also played a key role in all three wins. After a cold start in pinstripes, he is batting .310 with nine extra-base hits and a .892 OPS over his last 16 games.
“He’s been big-time,” Judge said. “I told him, ‘Hey, keep leading us. Keep being a guy that can come up in big spots.’ ”
Then there is Cabrera, whose arrival has also given the Yankees a boost. The versatile rookie seemingly has made his presence felt in at least one way every game.
There are still a few areas that offer cause for concern, though, leading with the bullpen. While some unlikely arms helped close out three straight 4-2 wins, the relief corps remains unsettled, with a mix of inconsistency and injuries popping up of late.
And in the lineup, not everyone is out of their slumps just yet. Josh Donaldson is still batting 6-for-44 (.136) with 17 strikeouts and a .445 OPS over his last 12 games, though his walk-off grand slam on Aug. 17 against the Rays certainly helped.
But the Yankees still came out of a tough nine-game homestand looking much better than when they started it.
“I think the most important thing is we learned from it,” Judge said. “We learned about what not to do. That if we don’t do the little things, we don’t make the little plays and prepare the right way, teams are going to come after us. I think it comes back to learn from those mistakes, learn from those series and time to move on to the next one.”
The MVP long ago decided, Aaron Judge is taking pennant-race matters into his own very large hands. He took over the Subway Series, hitting early stage-setting home runs in both games, driving in half the runs Tuesday in Game 2, lifting the Yankees out of their inexplicable funk and restoring faith in a team that’s suddenly looking like a powerhouse again.
Judge’s latest work of art landed 453 feet from home plate, a 115 mph drive deep into the lower deck in left field at Yankee Stadium that was home run No. 48. Now let’s see how far he can carry this Yankees ballclub that started to show a few too many cracks over the past month plus.
Singlehandedly, he turned a depression into a celebration almost as fast as he turned around replacement starter Taijuan Walker’s 3-and-2, fourth-inning offering. Judge is back on pace to beat Roger Maris, the Yankees’ lead seems pretty secure and all is right in The Bronx, at least for the moment.
Walker and recent Yankees acquisition Frankie Montas were locked in a scoreless duel when Judge pulled this one into oblivion, the key blow in a needed sweep for the Yankees, who spent the better part of a month searching for answers. This second straight 4-2 victory over the Mets before another sellout crowd at Yankee Stadium sealed the sweep and had to feel especially good after the disastrous last several weeks caused doubt to creep into the Yankees lexicon for the first time in a year that began magically.
Aaron Judge belts a solo home run in the fourth inning of the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Mets. AP
Yankees manager Aaron Boone seemed to stop the losing with that forceful slap of the interview table late Saturday. Then Judge began the winning, as he has done all year, and the Yankees are three in a row to the good.
If he has to, and at times it seems like he may, he will do it by himself.
The Yankees continue to show cracks, so he may have no choice.
In the Mets’ first run-scoring inning, Yankees backup catcher Kyle Higashioka helped the visitors by allowing rookie Brett Baty to reach base via catcher’s interference. In the Mets’ second run, Gleyber Torres became fixated on the trail runner, trying to beat Jeff McNeil back to the second-base bag as Pete Alonso scampered home. Alonso at first tried to hustling back to third after tripping rounding the bag, but once he saw Torres lost sight of the situation, he ran home.
Aaron Judge celebrates with Andrew Benintendi after the Yankees’ win.Corey Sipkin
The Yankees were due assists on both Mets runs. Keith Hernandez had to be calling out the atrocious fundies.
It was a wild one.
Then the Mets gave one back. The Yankees scored their third run when Alonso failed to catch a high pop-up in short right field, as he turned every which way but the right way. Alonso had quite an eventful game. Earlier he broke his huge bat over his knee following a strikeout. He did not do the same to his glove, though we imagine he has that capability.
Alonso is probably the Mets’ MVP so it’s advisable for him not to try to have any more fights with his lumber. Judge, meantime, is the MVP of the Yankees, the league, everything. And, by the way, he scorched a line single to drive home Jose Trevino with the insurance run, the final dagger in a two-day, one-man display.
It’s uncertain if anyone’s had a year like this.
Aaron Judge rips an RBI single in the seventh inning of the Yankees’ victory.Robert Sabo
Maybe Mickey Mantle in 1956 when he won the Triple Crown.
Or Carl Yastrzemski, who went on an impossible streak in the Impossible Dream season of 1967.
Or Barry Bonds a bunch of times. Although, we don’t really count those. Not in this space.
Judge, now on pace for 62 home runs, took over this series, and long ago he took over this season.
There are still those few holdouts who suggest the great Shohei Ohtani for MVP. Ohtani is the most amazing player. The most miraculous player.
But he is not the MVP. The MVP is the guy who’s shown his own sort of versatility.
The guy who plays center field because they need it even though he is 6-foot-7 and 280 pounds. And he does it as gracefully as nearly anyone. He glided back to the wall to make a one-handed catch on a Brandon Nimmo drive with one on and one out in the eighth.
The guy who leads the league in every slugging category but will bat leadoff if called upon. And do it happily.
The guy who will fix anything that’s broken in the clubhouse. The guy who will stand up and tell a teammate when he did wrong, as he did when Josh Donaldson stepped out of line early. You’ll notice no one else has stepped out of line.
The guy who will talk and explain what’s going on when everything’s going wrong. And that was happening for a month, or more.
But now things are back to normal. And Judge is in the center of it, doing whatever he can to make things right.
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The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
