What’s the best way for a young top prospect to introduce himself to a national baseball audience before making his MLB debut? Is it gaudy minor-league numbers? Is it College World Series heroics? Is it highlight plays or eye-popping Statcast numbers on the backfields?
What about homering off of one of the most dominant starters in baseball in your first-ever at-bat against him while your swing is broadcast live on ESPN? For George Lombard Jr., the Yankees’ top prospect, that’s the path he chose on Wednesday afternoon in Fort Myers, making an early statement off of Boston’s Garrett Crochet that served as the opening salvo for the Yankees’ 4-0 win over their rival Red Sox down at JetBlue Park. Lombard, paired with a home run from Ben Rice and strong pitching from Luis Gil, gave Yankees fans a lot to be excited about in another spring victory.
With a very young Yankees lineup making the trip down to Fort Myers to face one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, the bar was relatively low entering the day as to what we’d be happy to see with this lineup against him. Well, Lombard told a national audience that he’s not just a slick defender, absolutely tattooing a 1-2 fastball at the top of the zone for a leadoff home run in the first against the 2025 AL Cy Young Award runner-up.
Yes, the Yankees’ No. 1 prospect that multiple outlets have slowed their roll on because of the growing pains he encountered at Double-A at the age of 20 just homered off one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball.
It was the way he did it that might’ve been more impressive than the feat itself. A 96.8-mph high fastball from Crochet is near-unhittable, and he not only put a tremendous swing on it, but crushed it over JetBlue Park’s Green Monster replica. Pulling this ball—given its velo, location, and who threw it—for a home run over a high wall is absolutely absurd for a young hitter like Lombard.
Crochet settled in to retire the next three in order, but the ESPN broadcast and all Yankees fans were buzzing over Lombard. Gil took the mound in the bottom half and started his day with a pair of strikeouts, toying with Kristian Campbell and freezing Trevor Story. Marcelo Mayer tagged a ball to deep center for a barrel shortly after, but it innocently landed in the glove of Spencer Jones on the lip of the warning track.
Crochet rolled through the second, with the aforementioned Jones avoiding a punchout (good) with a non-threatening groundball to second base (not so good). Gil opened the second with two scary long fly balls, one off the bat of former Yankees prospect Caleb Durbin that landed in Jones’ glove, and another from Andruw Monasterio that hit the top of the wall for a double. Fortunately, non-roster invitee backstop Payton Henry erased the baserunner with a dart of a throw to catch him stealing third to evade the jam.
After getting the bottom-two hitters out with relative ease, Crochet once again faced off with the 20-year-old Lombard. After falling behind 2-1, Crochet grooved a relatively hittable sinker down the cut that Lombard smashed up the middle for a 108.5 mph single. The All-Star was replaced by minor-league reliever Max Carlson, who gave up an RBI double to Rice to make it 2-0 Yankees.
Gil’s command was strong through two innings, but he opened the third with a walk to both Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Tyler McDonough, though the latter was a matter of just barely missing rather than pure wildness. A trip to the mound was all he needed; however, striking out each of the next three hitters he faced, capped off with a 97.9-mph fastball he ripped past Story to end the third.
Paul DeJong led off the fourth and had to deal with Crochet being able to re-enter due to spring training rules. At the end of his rope, though, Crochet fell behind and hung a sweeper to DeJong, who crushed one off the confusing Mini Monster for a single to finally end the lefty’s day for good. Tayron Guerrero took the bump for the BoSox and gave up an excuse-me ground rule double to Jones before Jonathan Ornelas perfectly executed a safety squeeze to bring in the game’s third run.
Mayer singled off Gil to open the bottom of the fourth and, after he fell behind Durbin 2-1, Aaron Boone interrupted his interview with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez to take out Gil. Overall, it’s an encouraging day for the young starter, whose fastball had more zip on it than he had previously shown this spring and racked up six strikeouts, some of which came against guys who he’ll see in the regular season.
Jake Bird was first out of the ’pen and immediately induced a 5-4-3 double play after taking over mid-at-bat. He continued what’s been a very sharp spring by making Monasterio look silly with an array of sweepers to end the inning.
Justin Slaten took the ball in the fifth for the Red Sox and showed Crochet how to get Lombard out, but even he couldn’t escape the inning unscathed. With two out, he left a fastball up in the zone to Rice, who clobbered it 412 feet to right-center field for his first home run of the spring to make it 4-0. At 108.8 mph off the bat, it marked just another day that ends in “y” for Ben Arroz.
Bird got the first out of the fifth before Rice knocked down a hard grounder and flipped to a covering Bird, who missed the bag and allowed IKF to reach. That, kids, is why they practice PFPs! Bird was pulled for Yerry De los Santos, whose job was immediately made easier when Henry hosed his second runner of the day (with help from a nifty tag by Lombard). He gave up a single shortly after, but induced a groundout to end the fifth.
We got a mini-blockbuster battle between hyped prospects in the sixth between Jones and Payton Tolle after DeJong opened the inning with a walk. The hulking outfielder jumped ahead 3-1 with good patience, but missed his opportunity on a wheelhouse fastball that he fouled off before being caught looking on strike three at the top of the zone. Jones challenged, but the ABS system ruled that it nipped the top of the zone. Bah humbug. Even worse, the pinch-running Kenedy Corona slid off the bag on a stolen base attempt two pitches later.
De los Santos walked a pair in the bottom of the sixth before rebounding to strike out Max Ferguson to end his day. Bradley Hanner was tasked with getting the third out, and he got out of the jam by inducing a flyout to Jones in center.
After Tolle tore through the NRI trio in the seventh, Hanner flirted with more trouble after the seventh-inning stretch, allowing a double to IKF before walking Will Turner with two out. Double-A reliever Carson Coleman came on to extinguish the fire and retired Corey Rosier with a filthy 1-2 curveball to end the frame.
Tolle put up another zero in the eighth, working around a two-out single by Braden Shewmake. Boston’s offense, while continuing to be held off the scoreboard, once again refused to go away. An E3 by Ernesto Martinez Jr., a walk, and a single suddenly loaded the bases with one out for Jason Delay, who represented the tying run. As much as the outcome doesn’t matter that much this time of year, don’t tell that to Shewmake, who turned a very flashy 6-2 double play to end the inning.
Noah Song, most known for being the highest-drafted player out of the Naval Academy, got a 1-2-3 ninth. Kervin Castro, who induced the double play to end the eighth, finished off the shutout victory with a perfect final frame.
Oh, and because we’d be remiss if we didn’t share a monster Aaron Judge homer, he obliterated a pitch from Colorado’s Kyle Freeland for a 453-foot bomb in Team USA’s final World Baseball Classic tune-up.
Judge and the Americans will open up their WBC slate on Friday night at 8pm ET against Brazil on Fox. But you won’t have to wait as long to watch the Yankees again. They’ll be back at it on YES at George M. Steinbrenner Field tomorrow afternoon at 1:05pm ET, with Paul Blackburn on the bump.
