Aaron Judge homers for third straight game, Clarke Schmidt superb as Yankees top Royals again
The Yankees' Aaron Judge, left, and Yankees catcher Austin Wells celebrate their team's win over the Kansas City Royals on Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo. Credit: AP/Ed Zurga
June 11, 7:40 PM ET
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Clarke Schmidt wasn’t bad in his previous outing last Wednesday against Cleveland, except for a turbulent first inning in which he allowed three runs.
And he received no help from his offense that night anyway, the Yankees held to five hits in a shutout loss.
Schmidt had no such issues Wednesday night — both when it came to run support and run prevention.
The righthander, backed by a five-run second in which the Yankees batted around and several defensive gems from centerfielder Trent Grisham, threw six scoreless innings that contained little hard contact in a 6-3 victory over the Royals in front of 21,182 at Kauffman Stadium.
Aaron Judge did not deliver a hit in the five-run second (he walked), but he did homer for a third straight game. Judge’s 25th home run of the season, an opposite-field shot in the seventh inning on a 99-mph Steven Cruz fastball, made it 6-0.
“It’s getting out of hand at this point,” Schmidt said with a laugh of Judge, who leads the majors in almost every statistical category of significance, including batting average (.394), on-base percentage (.490), slugging (.779), and on-base plus slugging (1.269).
The Yankees (41-25) have won 22 of their last 31 games.
The shutout vanished in an ugly ninth when Mark Leiter Jr. allowed a two-run homer to Salvador Perez, his sixth homer coming after Vinnie Pasquantino hit a towering pop that fell between Oswald Peraza, who had to run in a ways from third, and catcher Austin Wells.
“Somebody’s obviously got to take charge there,” Aaron Boone said.
The Royals (34-34) got another run when Nick Loftin singled to third with one out and John Rave banged one back up the middle off Leiter, who threw wildly to first, the error bringing in Loftin to make it 6-3 and caused Boone to bring in Devin Williams. The closer struck out Mark Canha with a changeup and got Jonathan India to ground to first for his eighth save.
Besides the hideous ninth, potentially a bigger-picture sour note to the night for the Yankees was Jazz Chisholm Jr., who left Tuesday’s game in the seventh inning with stiffness in his neck, being replaced by Peraza in the fifth inning Wednesday because of left groin tightness.
“I think he’s OK,” Boone said. “Felt a little something in his groin. Testing strength and everything was good, so we’ll see what we have tomorrow.”
Schmidt (3-3, 3.60), who did struggle with his command at times, allowed two hits and three walks in a 91-pitch outing in which he struck out seven.
Boone said Schmidt’s “pitch mix” with his sinker, four-seam fastball, cutter, curveball and sweeper was maybe the best it’s been all season, which the pitcher agreed with.
“That was the name of the game for me,” Schmidt said. “I was really, really happy with the mix . . . I feel confident in all my pitches right now.”
Lefthander Kris Bubic, who came in 5-3 with a 1.43 ERA, allowed five runs, six hits and four walks over 4 1⁄3 innings in which he struck out just three.
All five runs came in the second, a 41-pitch inning for Bubic jumpstarted by Cody Bellinger’s leadoff triple, which improved the outfielder to 39-for-122 (.320) in his last 32 games. Anthony Volpe brought in Bellinger with a groundout to make it 1-0, and the Yankees would score four runs in the inning with two outs — on Austin Wells’ RBI double, a two-run single by Paul Goldschmidt and an RBI single by Ben Rice.
Grisham, meanwhile, showed the abilities that made him a two-time Gold Glove winner. The quiet but immensely popular-in-the-clubhouse Grisham — aka “The Big Sleep,” according to Boone — made three standout defense plays, two behind Schmidt. He charged in and made a diving catch on a flare to center by Drew Waters to end the second inning, threw out Maikel Garcia at second in the fourth as the third baseman tried to stretch a single into a double and, with Fernando Cruz on in the eighth, made another diving grab, this one on a sinking liner by Bobby Witt Jr. Both catches were ruled traps by the umpires but we overturned via replay challenges.
“I was pretty confident I got both of them,” Grisham said.
Schmidt smiled when asked about his centerfielder.
“I’m going to go shopping for a bottle of wine tomorrow,” Schmidt said. “I owe him big-time. He has two Gold Gloves for a reason. He’s so impressive.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
