Easy Win. Cortes & Judge Lead the Way. NY 8 KC 2

July 31, 2022 paperbacklou 2022 0

This one was never in doubt. The Yankees jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first 2 innings, capped by ANOTHER home run by Aaron Judge — this one a 2-run job — and Nestor Cortes and the Yankee bullpen cruised to a victory.

Clarke Schmidt pitched 3 impressive shutout innings for the save, Aroldis Chapman pitched a 1-2-3 shutout 6th inning, and DJ LeMahieu had his hitting shoes on — 3 hits including a homer to lead off the bottom of the 1st.

And Aaron Judge was perfect on the day — 2-2 with 2 walks — until a fly out his last time up that caused John Sterling to go into his homerun call for a second.

The homer was Judge’s 42nd of the year and the 200th of his career. He became the 2nd fastest player to 200 HRs (Ryan Howard is 1st), a milestone he was looking to get past. “I’m excited to get that one out of the way,” said Judge afterwards. “It’s over with and now it’s time to get ready for this last game against the Royals.”

On a hot, sunny, summer Saturday at the Stadium. Old Timer’s Game Day — there was no game played but there were ceremonies.

NY moves to 69-33, still 12.5 ahead of Toronto, 14 over Tampa, and now 17.5 over Baltimore and 19 over Boston. KC drops to 39-62.

1. Cortes Good (Enough)

Nestor Cortes Jr wasn’t brilliant, but he was pretty good. Good enough to pitch 5 innings in the brilliant sunshine and high heat and leave with a 6-2 lead for the win. He improved his record to 9-3 2.53.

Cortes got out of trouble in the top of the 2nd, after a leadoff walk and single, then fly out to put 1st and 3rd with 1 out. MJ Melendez hit a grounder back to Cortes, who fielded and threw back to 3rd to nab the runner.

Staked to the early 4-0 lead, Cortes gave up a double to Whit Merrifield in the 3rd, who came around to score when Salvador Perez hit a Long Fly Ball to Because — er.. Aaron Hicks — in centerfield for a sac fly to make it 4-1. Perez “just” got under it for the fly ball vs a homer.

Nestor allowed a single, walk, single for a run with 1 out in the 4th, but then got a double play to end the inning.

Cortes pitched a 1-2-3 5th inning and left with the 6-2 lead with 90 pitches thrown. Good enough for a win.

“I thought I threw the ball pretty well,” said Cortes afterwards. “Obviously had a couple of walks; couple of hits here and there. Got in trouble but managed to get through it and pitched 5 solid innings.”

2. LeMahieu Very Good

DJ LeMahieu has been Red Hot since the end of June. He led off the game against KC starter Jonathan Heasley with a 410-foot homer to center for a 1-0 Yankee lead.

LeMahieu got 3 hits on the afternoon (going 3-5) to raise his average to .283. He is batting .341 (.464 OBP) in July with one day to go in the month. He was 4-7 the last 2 days of June.

3. Judge Great

Aaron Judge followed LeMahieu’s homer with a single, and he came around to score, along with Andrew Benintendi who walked, on a Gleyber Torres booming double off the right-field wall that just missed going out.

Aaron Judge is the current talk of baseball, and his 2-run homerun in the bottom of the 2nd lit up MLB Twitter, with his pursuit of Roger Maris‘s Yankee HR record becoming more realizable every day. It was his 42nd homer of the year.

The homer reverbated across MLB twitter with Red Sox blue-checkmark and Yankee troll Jarred Carrabis commenting.

It was Judge’s 200th homer of his career, and John Sterling said on the radio that Judge was the 2nd fastest to 200 homers in MLB history (in At Bats) behind Ryan Howard. Not sure if that is true but Katie Sharp lit up her Twitter line with Judge stats.

Katie also said:

4. Kiner-Falefa SPEED Triggers More Yankee Runs

With 1 out in the 4th, Isiah Kiner-Felefa got on due to a fielding error by KC shortstop Maikel Garcia, and went to 3rd on the next play due to error by KC 2nd baseman Whit Merrifield.

DJ LeMahieu singled Kiner-Falefa home, and Andrew Benintendi followed with a sac fly to make it 6-2 NY.

In the 6th, Isiah Kiner-Falefa walked, and went to 2nd on a balk. He then stole 3rd and scored when Salvador Perez‘s throw to 3rd went into left field. NY 7 KC 2.

5. Another Carpenter HR

Matt Carpenter — playing right field on the day — hit another homer in the bottom of the 8th — to little fanfare since everyone is focused on Judge these days. It was Carpenter’s 15th homer of the year (in 106 at bats). He is now slashing 15-36-.311 (425 OBP) with a 1.218 OPS in 40 games.

6. Chapman Excellent

Aroldis Chapman pitched a 1-2-3 6th inning — another excellent outing as manager Aaron Boone slowly grooms his confidence.

7. Schmidt Another Impressive Stint

And Clarke Schmidt — the 16th pick in the 2017 draft — threw down 3 impressive shutout innings to close the game. Yet another impressive outing by Schmidt, who looks to alleviate the loss of Michael King.

Schmidt only allowed 2 hits and struck out 5, including the last 2 batters for the old ballgame.

Etcetera

  • There was no actual game for the Old Timer’s — just a ceremony. Most of the 1970’s Yankees were on hand, except of course for Graig Nettles who never gets invited to any Yankee events after writing the book Balls! in the late 1970’s.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401355731

 

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*