Judge goes deep two more times to help Yankees to 11-5 win over Blue Jays

Good game. Would watch again. The Yankees rebounded from their first set of back-to-back losses since the first week of the season by hammering the Blue Jays on Tuesday night. The final score was 11-5. Welcome back, offense. We missed you the last two days.

Splat Latos
The Yankees did not have a scoreless inning offensively until the fifth Tuesday night, which, not coincidentally, was the first inning the Blue Jays had someone other than Mat Latos on the mound. It was clear from the get-go Latos didn’t have much working. The Yankees started the game with a double (Brett Gardner), an infield single (Chase Headley), and a double (Matt Holliday) to take a quick 1-0 lead. Boom boom boom. Nice start after Monday’s game.

That first inning rally was stopped at one because Didi Gregorius managed to hit a double play grounder with runners on second and third. There was some funky baserunning involved. Didi hit a weak tapper to the pitcher and Headley wandered too far from third, then Holliday wandered too far from second, then Headley made an ill-advised break home and was thrown out. It was not pretty. And after all the RISPFAIL the last two days, it seemed ominous.

Thankfully, the Yankees hammered away at Latos after that. The wind was blowing out at Yankee Stadium and they lifted four balls up into the jet stream for home runs the next three innings. First up was Aaron Hicks, who tomahawked a high fastball …

… into the right field seats for a two-run home run in the second inning. I thought it was a pop-up off the bat. So did Jose Bautista, the right fielder, who appeared to have a beat on the ball, but kept having to back up as the wind took it. That was Hicks’ fifth homer and 59th plate appearance of the season. He hit his fifth homer in his 270th plate appearance last season, on August 12th. I approve of this new Aaron Hicks.

The Hicks homer gave the Yankees a 3-0 lead, and a few batters later they stretched that to 5-0 thanks to Gardner’s two-run homer. Chris Carter snuck a ground ball single through the left side of the infield, then Gardner parked one in the second deck in right field. Pretty much the exact opposite of what’s supposed to happen. Gardner’s supposed to hit the seeing-eye singles and Carter the second deck dingers. Baseball is weird sometimes.

Solo home runs by Aaron Judge in the third inning and Gardner in the fourth inning gave the Yankees a 7-0 lead, all against Latos. He was: bad. The Judge home run was an opposite field shot right into the right field corner. A nice little Yankee Stadium cheapie. Gardner’s appeared to be wind-aided. He got the ball up in the air and it carried into the home bullpen. Second two-homer game on the homestand for Brett. Go figure. He went 69 games without a homer and now has four in the last four days.

A Strange Game For Tanaka
Bit of a weird outing for Masahiro Tanaka. He allowed a leadoff double to Kevin Pillar to start the game, but was able to strand the runner and keep the Blue Jays off the board through four innings. He looked really good. Lots of weak contact and silly swings. Vintage Tanaka, basically. The Yankees have gave him a nice big lead and he was on cruise control. Doing what a veteran does with a big lead.

Then, in the fifth, the Blue Jays started to square him up pretty good. Steve Pearce, who came into the game hitting .167/.211/.167 (2 wRC+), smacked a solo home to left, then a double (Devon Travis) and a hard-hit single (Chris Coghlan) gave Toronto their second run. Even the third out of the inning was a hard-hit liner to second. Bautista hit a booming double to left to open the sixth, and although he didn’t score, it was still another well-struck ball.

Pearce took Tanaka deep again in the seventh, and one out and one single later, Masahiro’s night was over. (The inherited runner later came around to score on Dellin Betances balk.) Tanaka’s final line: 6.1 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 2 K. Meh. He was great the first four innings and crummy the final two innings plus one out. Tanaka picked a good night to throw a clunker. The offense picked him up.

The Tack-On Runs
The balk by Betances gave the Blue Jays their fourth run and cut the lead to 8-4. The Blue Jays actually loaded the bases and had the tying run at the plate with two outs in that seventh inning, but Dellin put an end to that nonsense by striking out Kendrys Morales on three pitches. Betances can sometimes get a little nibble-y — well, it’s more like can’t-throw-a-strike-y — but when he goes into FU mode, he’s untouchable, as Morales found out.

Anyway, that 8-4 lead became an 11-4 lead in the bottom of the seventh thanks to Judge’s second home run of the night. The first was a little liner into the right field corner. The second was a majestic shot high up in the air that eventually settled into the left field seats. It was a monster at-bat. Monster at-bat. Judge fell behind in the count 0-2 to Jason Grilli, worked it back to 3-2, fouled off four two-strike pitches, then put the ball into orbit.

I’m pretty sure Judge thought he just missed that ball based on his reaction. Like he got it off the end of the bat or something. I guess the wind pushed it out, which tends to happen on windy nights when you hit the ball as high as he did. Judge also made a diving catch in right and is now hitting .313/.424/.795 (233 wRC+) with an AL leading 12 home runs. He also has a 15.2% walk rate. Pitchers are scared.

Leftovers
The Yankees hit five home runs in the game and all five were hit by the outfielders: two for Gardner, two for Judge, and one for Hicks. It’s the first time the Yankees had all three outfielders go deep in the same game since May 17th, 2014, when Gardner, Alfonso Soriano, and Zoilo Almonte (!) did it. Also, this is the first time since May 30th, 1961 that the starting outfield combined for five homers. Two for Mickey Mantle, two for Roger Maris, one for Yogi Berra that day. L-O-L.

Tyler Clippard replaced Tanaka and faced three batters, allowing two of them to reach base. That loaded the bases with one out — the Yankees were still up 8-3 at the time — which prompted Joe Girardi to go to Betances. Good idea. That’s when you want your best reliever in the game. Tommy Layne allowed a run in the eighth inning and Jonathan Holder finished off the ninth. Things got a little dicey in the seventh, but no harm, no foul.

The Yankees had 16 hits total, including three each by Gardner and Holliday, and two each by Headley, Judge, Hicks, and Starlin Castro. Castro’s up to .360/.402/.550 (171 wRC+) on the season. Gosh. The starters in the top seven spots in the lineup went a combined 14-for-31 (.452) with four doubles and five homers even including Didi’s 0-for-4. Facing Mat Latos is good for the ol’ batting average.

Austin Romine exited the game in the seventh inning with what the Yankees called cramping in his groin. He grimaced a bit while running the bases in the sixth. Girardi didn’t seem overly concerned after the game. He did indicate they won’t activate Gary Sanchez should Romine not be available tomorrow. Sanchez will finish his rehab.

And finally, Kyle Higashioka almost picked up his first MLB hit in the seventh inning. He lifted a little bloop to shallow left that clanked off Pearce’s glove. Pearce was given an error (correctly), but I was hoping they’d give Higgy his first hit. He’s going down when Sanchez returns, and it’d be cool to get that first knock out of the way, you know?

Box Score, WPA Graph & Standings
Head over to ESPN for the box score, MLB.com for the video highlights, and ESPN for the updated standings. Don’t miss our Bullpen Workload page either. Here’s the ol’ graph of win probability:

Source: FanGraphs

Up Next
The Yankees and Blue Jays wrap up this three-game series with the rubber game Wednesday night. That’s the final game of the homestand. CC Sabathia and Marcus Stroman are the scheduled starting pitchers. Want to catch that game at Yankee Stadium? RAB Tickets can get you there.