Yankees hit three more homers to give them 22 in six games, defeat Diamondbacks
The Yankees’ Jazz Chisholm Jr. is greeted by Aaron Judge after both score on his two-run home run against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the fourth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Yankees struck out 30 times in their first two games against the Diamondbacks this week, leading to their first two losses of the season and to some pregame soul-searching on Thursday night.
That included a pep talk from Giancarlo Stanton, according to Aaron Judge.
“I think we all kind of locked it in,” Judge said. “Big G said a couple of words before the game just about how this is our home turf and we have to go out there and not get swept at home.
“Guys took that to heart and we were able to salvage one.”
That they did, starting with Judge hitting a three-run home run into the home bullpen in right-centerfield in the first inning, which is the best answer of all.
It set the tone for a 9-7 victory and a resumption of the Yankees’ early-season assault on the record books.
After Judge’s home run, Trent Grisham and Jazz Chisholm Jr. added two-out, two-run shots.
That gives the Yankees 22 home runs — five more than any other major-league team has hit in its first six games of a season.
Judge, serving as the DH, was 3-for-5 with a homer, single, double and stolen base. He is batting .417 with five home runs, 15 RBIs and a 1.648 OPS.
“One of the best players to ever play this game,” Chisholm said. “We all just try to be like him.
“We all tell him every day, ‘Hey, we want to be you when we grow up.’ We’ve got our big brother leading us. It helps a lot.”
The Yankees saw a 9-3 lead after four innings cut to 9-7 on a seventh-inning grand slam by Geraldo Perdomo off Ryan Yarbrough but hung on for the win behind relievers Mark Leiter Jr. and Luke Weaver.
The Yankees went 4-2 on their season-opening homestand. The Diamondbacks are 4-3.
The victory went to Carlos Carrasco, who allowed three runs, five hits and two walks with five strikeouts in 5 1⁄3 innings and threw 82 pitches.
No one would have predicted in mid-February that come early April, the Yankees would turn to Carrasco as their starting pitcher in a key game.
Expectations were low, but if he proved himself worthy, he knew he could at least buy time to stick around a while.
Manager Aaron Boone called Carrasco’s performance “huge.”
Boone said before the game that Clarke Schmidt will make two more rehab starts and pitch for the Yankees against the Royals on April 15 or 16. That could spell the end of Carrasco’s time in the rotation. Or not.
Carrasco, a former Met who goes by the nickname “Cookie,” is a 16-year major-league veteran. He is the 14th Yankee to make his first start with the team at age 38 or older, and the first since Randy Johnson did it at age 41 in 2005.
When Judge smoked a 1-and-1 pitch for his fifth home run, Carrasco suddenly had a 3-0 lead. Grisham then doubled in Jasson Dominguez with the fourth run against Merrill Kelly.
Carrasco gave up a run in the second when Josh Naylor walked, Eugenio Suarez doubled down the leftfield line and Alek Thomas grounded out to second base. But when Grisham hit a two-run homer to right in the third, it was 6-1.
Things went awry for Carrasco in the fourth. He walked Pavin Smith, allowed a single by Naylor and gave up an RBI double down the leftfield line by Lourdes Gurriel Jr., all with none out. He allowed another run on Thomas’ second run-scoring groundout to second.
Judge drove in Ben Rice from second with a single in the fourth to make it 7-3 and Chisholm’s homer to right gave the Yankees a 9-3 lead.
The Diamondbacks got right back into the game when Perdomo hit a grand slam that barely cleared the rightfield wall. Suddenly, it was 9-7.
The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh, but Jalen Beeks struck out Rice to end the threat.
Notes & quotes: Boone said closer Devin Williams will return from paternity leave on Friday . . . Boone said he wanted to give Paul Goldschmidt a day off ahead of a late trip to Pittsburgh, where Goldschmidt is expected to play all three games. Goldschmidt pinch hit in the seventh and stayed in at first base . . . Austin Wells got the night off, opening the door for J.C. Escarra’s first major-league start and first major-league hit, a double . . . Judge’s three-run homer in the first inning was his 500th career extra-base hit in his 999th game.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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