Source: FanGraphs
Ten runs? Ten runs! That’s like, a series worth of runs for this offense. The Yankees scored double-digit runs for the first time since May 10th and just the fourth time overall this season. I missed the bulk of the run scoring — I saw the first and last inning on television, listened to everything else on the radio — but at this point I’m not complaining. Whatever it takes to wake the bats up. The Twins usually do the trick.
Robinson Cano is officially en fuego, following up Sunday night’s homer with two more on Monday, plus he tacked on a double. That is very good news. The Yankees need him to hit like a superstar. Brett Gardner had two hits and Zoilo Almonte had three, but the biggest play of the night was Twins setup man Jared Burton throwing away a pickoff throw and allowing a) the tying run to score from third, and b) Ichiro Suzuki to go first to third with no outs. That set up the game-winning run, though the team tacked in plenty of insurance afterwards.
Ten runs is nice, but Andy Pettitte had a nightmare first inning and a really shaky outing overall. There were a ton of hard-hit balls right at people. It could have been a lot worse than what the box score says, which isn’t anything special anyway: four runs on six hits and four walks in five innings. Andy hasn’t pitched well at all since coming off the DL. On the bright side, he did strike out two batters to move passed Whitey Ford for the franchise strikeout record at 1,958. That’s pretty cool. Congrats to him.
The bullpen held Minnesota to four base-runners in four scoreless innings, striking out five. David Robertson had three of those strikeouts in the eighth. The Yankees piled up 14 hits, their fourth highest total of the season and the fourth time they’ve had double-digit hits in the last six games. It took them 19 games to get their previous four double-digit hit games. Everyone in the starting lineup reached base except David Adams, who is killin’ them softly at the hot corner. They need help at third in the worst way.
And finally, this was the 600th win of Joe Girardi’s managerial career, so congrats to him. Five-hundred and twenty-two of those have come with the Yankees. MLB.com has the box score and video highlights, FanGraphs some other stats, and ESPN the updated standings. The Yankees are five back of first place in the AL East and two up on last in the loss column. They’re three back of a wildcard spot. Phil Hughes and Samuel Deduno is your pitching matchup Tuesday night.