The champs are in the building. That’s one heck of a motivator.
Before Wednesday night’s game at Yankee Stadium, Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart came to the mound to throw ceremonial first pitches. The duo will join the rest of their Knicks teammates at the Canyon of Heroes, a spot the Yankees have populated frequently in years past, for their championship parade. The city will be bloated to burst with euphoric fans, celebrating the end of a long drought and an incredible postseason run which united all five boroughs.
The Yankees will never be able to unite the whole city behind them—they’ve been villains for far too long. But seeing the ovation Brunson and Hart received has to light a fire under you. The Yankees indeed put together a spirited performance, dropping double-digit runs against the White Sox for the second consecutive game en route to a 10-5 victory. It continues an appropriately strong start to a week in which plenty of revelry still awaits in NYC.
It’s always pretty amusing when both teams face the same scenario in the same inning, but one squad ultimately succeeds and the other doesn’t. Both the Yankees and White Sox had a run-producing opportunities after a two-out double in the opening frame. The White Sox’ Colson Montgomery worked a 12-pitch at-bat but ultimately failed to come through. Cody Bellinger, master of the left-on-left matchup, had no such trouble. His two-run homer put the Bombers ahead early.
After Brunson and Hart stopped by the YES—er, Amazon Prime booth, the Yanks got right back to work against lefty starter Anthony Kay with the bottom of their order. José Caballero took a ball off his shoetop, but was still able to race all the way home from first base on an Anthony Volpe triple. Ali Sánchez then singled Volpe home with a simple base hit to right field to give Rodón plenty of early breathing room against the team that drafted him out of NC State.
Unfortunately, the room got cramped again real quick. Montgomery must have felt a little rankled when Rodón outlasted him in the first, so with two aboard and two out in the third he got his revenge. On an 0-2 count, Carlos’ slider caught far too much plate and the young infielder jolted it over the right field wall to put the Pale Hose back within one run.
The Yankees subsequently failed to bring home Cody Bellinger on three tries in the bottom half following his leadoff double and advancement to third on a wild pitch. At this point, my Recapper’s Intuition(TM) told me we wouldn’t be seeing any more scoring for a while.
Thankfully, the Yankees got to work to foil my prediction against new pitcher Sean Newcomb to open the fifth inning. Bellinger’s third hit of the evening started the rally, then Jasson Domínguez lashed an opposite field double to give the middle of the order a prime opportunity for some insurance. Jazz Chisholm Jr. blew his chance on a first-pitch foul pop, but Caballero had his teammate’s back. He stayed back on a letter-high fastball and raked it the other way to score both runners.
They weren’t done. Volpe and Sánchez collected their second respective hits in their second respective at-bats, flipping the lineup card over for Paul Goldschmidt. Continuing the opposite-field theme, Goldy clocked a line drive towards the short porch, and it zipped into the stands for a three-run home run to break the game wide open.
Bellinger and Goldschmidt now have 11 homers apiece on the season.
Rodón struck out the side after the Sox got the leadoff man aboard in the fourth, then he worked around a double in the fifth to finish his night. A couple long stanzas limited his outing to a five-and-dive, but given last night’s 10-run victory and the six-run margin the Yanks had already built, it wasn’t paramount that he go deeper. Paul Blackburn handled matters in the sixth, seventh, and a slice of the eighth.
Following the seventh-inning stretch, Jazz decided to get in on the act with a home right to right field, giving the Yankees double-digit runs for the second straight night. That blast gave him 10 on the year—still a long way to go if he wishes to reach the 50/50 club. But hey, at least the homers have been coming pretty consistently of late.
The Southsiders grabbed a few late runs on solo homers: another from Colson Montgomery in the eighth, then a long drive from Team Italy legend Sam Antonacci against Jake Bird in the ninth. But they went down in order after that final loud sound to secure a fourth straight Yankee victory, nine of their last ten, and 15 of their last 20. Meanwhile, the Dodgers completed a sweep of the Rays to give the Bombers yet another game of cushion in the standings.
The Yankees will aim for a sweep of their own tomorrow night against the White Sox, who have been flattened to the tune of 22 runs during their sojourn in the Bronx. Ryan Weathers will be tapped to start against 26-year old righty Sean Burke.
