SAN FRANCISCO — Through the first three games of this season, only last year’s home run champ, Seattle’s Cal Raleigh, struck out more times than Aaron Judge.

And Judge has just two hits so far in 2026.

But both of those hits have been home runs in Yankees’ wins — including in Saturday’s 3-1 victory over the Giants at Oracle Park.

“It’s early in the season,’’ Aaron Boone said. “He’s kind of finding it. He’s not like anyone else. His hits have been two big home runs. Like I’ve said, he’s playing a different game.”

One that’s seen him now hit 370 home runs in his career, tied for 83rd all-time with Gil Hodges.

He also passed another New York home run legend on Saturday, Ralph Kiner, who hit 369 homers in his career.

The next on the list is — oddly enough — Judge’s current teammate, Paul Goldschmidt, with 372 and counting.

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But regardless of how many home runs Judge hits or awards he earns, the right fielder is interested in only one number: one.

He’s still waiting for his first World Series title and that remains at the forefront of his mind, as he explained before Saturday’s victory.

“My job is not to win MVPs,” Judge said. “It’s to win games. The MVPs and other things are cool and when I’m done playing, I’ll think about that. But now, doing that takes away from the ultimate goal of putting the Yankees back on top. Counting those other things and worrying about that doesn’t help.”

Instead, Judge focuses on what’s left for him to accomplish.

“I only think about the stuff I’ve missed out on,’’ Judge said. “That’s all that matters every year. It’s not All-Star games or MVPs. It’s ‘Did you win it all or not?’ And not getting that always eats at you.”

And that won’t change during the regular season, regardless of the numbers Judge puts up.

A few wins in March won’t change it, either, though it’s better than the alternative, especially with the Yankees now 6-0 in Judge’s career at his hometown ballpark.

“The good stuff is fine, but the disappointments are what drive you,’’ Judge said.

He insisted that remains the case in his 11th major league season.

“I’ve been the same when it comes to that since my rookie year and we lost the ALCS,’’ Judge said. “A loss is a loss, regardless of where you are in your career. It doesn’t matter what happened during the regular season. I’m here to finally punch the ticket and finish it off.”

So the fact that Judge’s fifth-inning homer against lefty Ryan Borucki was followed by the Yankees fans in attendance chanting “MVP’’ isn’t especially relevant.

Instead, he’s already focused on October and what he can do there.

“The regular season is spring training at this point,’’ Judge said. “It’s practice for the real test so we can get the kinks out before the games that matter when we need to take care of business.”

SAN FRANCISCO — Before the automated ball-strike system came into play in real games that counted, the Yankees spent plenty of mornings this spring talking about it.

“We had too many meetings about it, in my opinion,” Aaron Judge said with a grin.

Judge was at least partly joking — “It’s all good stuff,” he later added — but the early returns have been strong.

In their season-opening sweep of the Giants, the Yankees went 5-for-6 in ABS challenges, including 3-for-3 on Saturday, with each of them coming in key moments in a 3-1 win at Oracle Park.

The first came in Trent Grisham’s at-bat with one out in the third inning, when Tyler Mahle threw a 2-2 pitch that home plate umpire Chad Whitson called strike three.

But Grisham challenged the pitch and it proved to be high, turning into ball three on the way to a walk, allowing him to later score on Ben Rice’s two-out, two-run double.

“That sets up a lot right there,” manager Aaron Boone said.

Austin Wells was responsible for the other two, helping out his relievers. In the seventh inning of a 3-1 game, Jake Bird threw an 0-1 pitch to Casey Schmitt that Whitson called a ball. But Wells challenged it, turning it into a strike and one pitch later, Schmitt struck out.

Tim Hill then entered to face Jung Hoo Lee and threw an 0-2 pitch that Whitson deemed a ball, only for Wells to challenge it and get a called third strike that ended the frame.

“I love what I’m seeing from Austin Wells back there, overturning a couple big calls to shift the momentum onto our side,” Aaron Judge said.

Carlos Rodón is expected to make his next outing back in Tampa on Sunday or Monday, another live batting practice (or extended spring game) as he continues his buildup from October surgery to shave down a bone spur and remove loose bodies.

The left-hander threw three innings and about 40 pitches on Tuesday, so he could build to about 50 pitches in his next outing.

It seems plausible that his next start after that would be on a rehab assignment, though Boone was not yet ready to make that official on Saturday.

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Gerrit Cole is also expected to throw live back in Tampa in the coming days, though he noted after his last start on Tuesday in Arizona that he expects to go through a deload period before starting his own rehab assignment.

The win marked Boone’s 700th as manager, making him the seventh Yankees manager to reach that milestone, joining Joe McCarthy, Joe Torre, Casey Stengel, Miller Huggins, Ralph Houk and Joe Girardi.

The Mariners picked up their first singles of the season but couldn’t get much action until too late.

The Mariners entered the ninth inning Saturday with six hits and six walks and just two runs to show for it. They trailed the Guardians 3-2 when Cole Young leadoff the inning by plopping a a soft liner down the left field line for a double. Ryan Bliss tried to bunt him over for some reason but couldn’t get it down and struck out. Cal Raleigh struck out behind him.

That brought Julio Rodríguez to the plate. He fell behind 1-2 against dominant Guardians’ closer Cade Smith. Then he got a fastball up and in and laced his first hit of the season back up the middle to tie the game.

The Mariners would go on to lose 6-5.

Dan Wilson turned to Andrés Muñoz in the 10th to preserve the new tie. Steven Kwan laid down a sacrifice bunt up the third base line; Brendan Donovan charged, scooped, and threw the ball into right field, scoring the Manfred Man from second and allowing Kwan to replace him there. Rookie Chase DeLauter stepped to the plate and crushed his fourth homer of the year the other way, giving the Guardians a 6-3 lead.

Luke Raley answered in the bottom of the inning. With the Manfred Man on and one out, he got a fastball up and away and pulled it into the right-center stands for his third home run of the year, cutting the lead to 6-5.

Leo Rivas and Young each struck out to end the game.

The Mariners lineup entered the day having yet to hit a single — the only team in MLB history without a single through their first two games. That changed Saturday, picking up six singles, two doubles, and the Raley homer to go with seven walks. It was a solid performance overall, but they couldn’t quite string their hits together to capitalize.

In the second, Randy Arozarena struck out looking with a full count. He immediately challenged and began taking off his gear as the T-Mobile Park video board flashed the ABS decision: Ball four. Donovan quickly replaced him at first with a fielder’s choice. Victor Robles, in his first plate appearance of the season, yanked a double down the left field line, scoring Donovan all the way from first. That was all they’d get in the inning.

It was a good sign from Donovan — both beating out the fielder’s choice and coming around to score — as he’d whacked his knees against the left field stands making a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch in the first inning. He appeared to be OK. 

The Mariners picked up their first single of 2026 in the third inning. Cal Raleigh, the three true outcome king himself, dunked a soft liner up the middle. He was 0-for-8 on the season with eight strikeouts (and a walk) entering the at bat, and he flashed a big grin after getting to first base. He immediately stole second, and Julio Rodríguez walked behind him, but the Mariners couldn’t cash in.

In the fourth, Arozarena lead off with a single on a dribbler down the third base line that catcher David Fry should have let roll foul but didn’t. Donovan followed with a single to put runners on first and second. Robles advanced Arozarena to third with a fly out to deep right. Leo Rivas worked a long at bat before watching ball four sail to the backstop, allowing Arozarena to trot home. But after chasing Guardians’ starting pitcher Joey Cantillo in the fourth inning at 91 pitches, they couldn’t push across any more.

In the sixth, Donovan and Robles each picked up one-out singles and then advanced on a double steal. But Rivas grounded out to short with the infield drawn in and Donovan was nailed at the plate. In the seventh, they got two on with a pair of walks but couldn’t tie the game. They got another walk in the eighth but again couldn’t tie the game again.

Despite the bizarre sequencing to start to the season, the Mariners have a 126 wRC+ in three games — sixth best in the majors.

The Mariners were in the game to the end because Bryan Woo picked up right where he left off in his first start of 2026. He gave up two runs and four hits over six innings while striking out nine. He pumped his signature four-seam fastball over and over and over and the Guardians struggled to make solid contact, whiffing 11 times on 37 swings against the fastball. He cruised through the first five innings, as the Mariners held a 2-0 lead.

But he struggled in the sixth. His fastball velocity was down a touch, and his command was just off.  He issued a leadoff walk, then after getting two quick outs, appeared to issue another walk to José Ramírez. The Mariners, however, challenged the call. When they were proven correct, Ramírez returned to the box and laced his 400th career double to score the Guardians’ first run. Kyle Manzardo followed with a single to the tie game at two.

Eduard Bazardo allowed the Guardians to break the tie in the seventh with a pair of two-out walks and an RBI single to Kwan to make the game 3-2. Gabe Speier came in to get the final out of the inning and preserve the narrow deficit. Wilson after the game defended his decision to stick with Bazardo against the lefty Kwan even after the two walks.

“Zardo is a guy we really trust, and Kwan was just able to flip that ball into left field and get the big hit. So you’re hoping you can get him through there, and then Gabe has got the next inning. But it was just one of those tough ones tonight.”

Woo was hard on himself after the game, in a way that, if you don’t mind a bit of editorializing, wasn’t quite fair given how well he pitched most of the night.

“I think…just…undisciplined, is the best way I can put it,” he said of his mini-blowup in the sixth. “I have to be better about coming out, especially as you get later into games. You’ve got to up your focus even more, and that just can’t happen.

“Even though a lot of things took place, I still feel like this game was on me. I feel like if I do my job and limit the damage, even if I just give up one in that inning, just to get out of it with a lead…when a team is, when you get them down like that, you’ve got to keep them down. You can’t give them anything, especially a scrappy team like that. You give them any breath of life, they’ll take it and run with it. So I’ve got to do a better job of keeping teams down when they’re down.”

The Guardians were aggressive against Woo, swinging at more than half his pitches. Woo was aggressive right back, pumping heaters in the zone all six innings. He said he doesn’t change his approach between or within games. It’s just a matter of committing to his game plan.

“Teams have come out with different strategies against me, whether it’s being patient and trying to work counts or coming out swinging, it doesn’t really change my plan of attack. I still want to get ahead, I still want to be aggressive. I’m still trying to attack the zone early and stick to my game plan. Worked out in my favor for the majority of the game, but didn’t change what I was doing.”

Woo entered the day with 392 career strikeouts. With his strikeout of DeLauter in the sixth, he picked up career K number 400.

“Hopefully I’ll find the ball somewhere, maybe put it on my wall,” he said, “and then on to 500.”

In the second game of the season, it became obvious that the Mets are starting a third baseman with virtually no experience at third base and a first baseman with virtually no experience at first base.

Bo Bichette committed an error and Jorge Polanco flirted with two (but was charged with none), the pair of projects looking raw in what became a 4-2 win in 11 innings over the Pirates at Citi Field on Saturday.

A shortstop with the Blue Jays who was generally viewed as a second baseman in free agency, Bichette signed as a third baseman with the Mets and is still mastering throwing across the diamond.

On Thursday, one of his throws pulled Polanco off the base, but Polanco adjusted and recorded the out anyway. On Saturday, another one of Bichette’s throws tailed up the line again, but this time it cost the Mets an out. Polanco came off the base, allowing Bryan Reynolds to reach safely in the fourth inning. David Peterson, who pitched into and out of trouble all day, navigated around the jam.

“We’ve just got to continue to work with him on those routine throws,” said manager Carlos Mendoza, who anticipates that further reps will help.

Polanco, an infielder who signed with the Mets with one pitch worth of big league experience at first base, did not look smooth on several ground balls.

In the seventh, Ryan O’Hearn grounded softly to Polanco, who fielded and tossed it behind Luke Weaver. The Mets only recorded the out because Weaver, displaying his athleticism, adjusted and slid to touch the base in time.

An inning prior, Nick Gonzales smashed a ground ball to Polanco, who was swallowed up by a bad hop after the ball hit the lip of the grass. Gonzales reached safely on what was ruled a hit, and Peterson and Huascar Brazobán combined to ensure that runner would not score.

“Just a hard ground ball that came up on him,” Mendoza said. “There’s only so much there that you can do.”

The Mets opened their season Thursday. It is likely that Mark Vientos will not start his first game until the following Wednesday.

Barring changes in the Pirates or Cardinals rotations, the Mets will open their season facing five straight righty starting pitchers.

They won’t see a lefty until the final game of their series in St. Louis, where Matthew Liberatore is set to pitch (and the Giants, the Mets’ following opponent, could open their series with lefty Robbie Ray).

That likely will mean Vientos — a righty bat who is expected to see most of his time against lefties — will have to wait his turn. As a pinch-hitter, Vientos’ turn arrived in Saturday’s 10th inning, when he pinch hit for Carson Benge and came through with a single.

Mendoza said he talked with Vientos and righty-hitting fourth outfielder Tyrone Taylor about the situation, and both understood.

In delivering the news to Vientos, Mendoza recalled the 2024 season — when Vientos became a late-camp cut because of the J.D. Martinez signing, was briefly called up to the majors and clubbed a walk-off home run, only to be optioned back to the minors shortly thereafter, before finally running with his chance in mid-May.

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The message, essentially: Vientos has to be ready for anything and can overcome frustrations.

“Look, man, two years ago you had your best year here,” Mendoza said he told Vientos. “He understands. He’ll be ready for whenever his name is called.”

Mendoza conceded that this year’s role is “completely different” for Vientos, who will play some first base and generally serve as the designated hitter against lefties. His role has been reduced after a subpar 2025 — both at third base and offensively, his OPS dropping from .837 to .702 — and the active offseason pushing Brett Baty to the team’s DH for the first two games, though the Mets plan to cycle through DHs beginning as soon as Sunday.

Mendoza said Baty — who will see time at first base this season, too, to push Polanco to DH — will see the field soon, in part because Saturday’s game began a run of nine games in nine days for the Mets.

In their season opener, the Mets used three automated ball-strike challenges: two successfully by Francisco Alvarez at catcher — including a helmet tap that turned an Oneil Cruz walk into a strikeout — and one unsuccessfully by Marcus Semien, who appealed a called third strike in the eighth inning.

Mendoza said everybody on the Mets is free to challenge.

“I would say that the situation of the game will dictate when they’re going to be able to challenge or not,” Mendoza said. “The emotions at times will take over. But that’s where you’re going to have to constantly remind those guys of the situation.”

THE GUARDIANS WIN!!! CHASE DELAUTER DID IT AGAIN!!! HOW FUN IS THIS GUYS???

The Guardians win 6-5 after a truly incredible game. Bryan Woo was shoving all game and it looked like we were never going to get to him, until we did. A key walk from Rocchio and then our GOAT José knocked him in with an RBI double. Then Manzardo came through with an RBI single right after that. The Guardians later took the lead after a Kwan RBI single in the 7th inning. The Mariners wound up getting to Cade Smith in the bottom of the 9th after a double down the left field line from Cole Young and a single from Julio Rodriguez.

Extra innings started with an absolutely beautiful bunt from Steven Kwan that led to Brendan Donovan throwing it away at 1B, which caused Rocchio to score and Kwan to advance to second. Then comes up Chase DeLauter, the man who had already done what no Cleveland player has ever done in hitting three HRs in their first two career games. He was having a rough game, Bryan Woo had his way with him as he does to most hitters. It wasn’t Woo this time, it was Andrés Muñoz, one of the best closers in the league. DeLauter then takes a 97 mph fastball up and outside the zone over the left field wall to take the lead 6-3. Absolute insanity.

What more can be said about this kid? DeLauter is by far the best hitter I have ever watched in the minor leagues, and even I could never have ever expected this. He is such a special hitter that I have learned to not put any ceiling on who he can be as a player. I’m trying not to overreact too much, but he truly is that special. This is some of the most fun I have ever had watching Baseball, and we are only three games into the season. Buckle up you guys, it is going to be a good one.

Well, that was disappointing. Not only did we lose another game to the Doyers at Uniqlo Park at Dodger Stadium at Chavez Latrine at the City of Smog and Angels, we also managed to be on the business end of our first sweep of the year. And we’re only three games in. So that sucks.

Honestly, though, it’s not all that much of a shock, at least to me. And, somewhat to my surprise, I’m not even all that upset. The Diamondbacks are a team that enters 2026 with a bit more than $133M of player contracts on the books. We’re going up against a team that, if you factor in all the deferred money and so forth that MLB has let them get away with, has more financial obligations than at least several small nation states. It was always going to be an uphill battle, especially for the first series of the regular season, when everyone’s still kind of shaking off the rust from the long off-season.

Eduardo Rodriguez, the pitching hero of the Venezuelan national team in the World Baseball Classic, took the mound for us, facing off against Tyler Glasnow, who has pitched more than 100 innings only three times in his major league career and who is earning $32.5M to pitch for Los Angeles this year. And while Glasnow did all right for the Doyers today, holding the Diamondbacks to two runs over six full innings of work, E-Rod pitched better, pitching five shutout innings, striking out five while allowing only three singles and two walks. He faced one batter to start the sixth—Kyle Tucker, who is earning $56M this year—and was pulled after Tucker reached on an infield squib shot to Carlos Santana that he bobbled a bit. E-Rod was maybe a bit late covering the bag at first, and Tucker reached, and he eventually came around to score, but the run was unearned as Santana was charged with an error.

Anyway. Let’s start from the beginning. Our Snakes got on the board in the top of the first, thanks to a one-out infield single by Corbin Carroll that was initially ruled a force-out at first, but which was overturned when video review showed that Corbin, who was busting it right out of the batter’s box, clearly beat the throw. Geraldo Perdomo then grounded to first, moving Carroll along, and then Pavin Smith singled to left to drive him in from second:

Nolan Arenado then continued his fruitless run with the bat, though at least he didn’t strike out. 1-0 D-BACKS

We did some more damage against Glasnow in the third, thanks to a leadoff Jorge Barrosa double down the left field line, followed by another productive groundout, this one by Ketel Marte, that allowed Barrosa to reach third with less than two outs. Corbin Carroll lifted a fly ball to center that turned out to be deep enough for Barrosa to tag and score. 2-0 D-BACKS

And that was your score until the Dodgers got one run back in the bottom of the sixth, thanks to the aforementioned Santana error (which is a scoring decision I’m not sure he deserved) and a subsequent Freddy Freeman double off reliever Jonathan Loaisiga that brought him home. 2-1 D-BACKS

But we still had the lead, and we held it through the bottom of the seventh, as new Diamondback and indicator of the state of our bullpen Joe Ross pitched a kind of ugly but ultimately successful 1-2-3 inning. Meanwhile, we were doing basically nothing further on offense, as Glasnow gave way to Alex Vesia, who in turn gave way to some dude named Will Klein.

Juan Morillo took the ball for us to start the bottom of the eighth, I guess because he’s the closest thing we have in terms of splits to a left-handed reliever, and sure enough he made short(ish) work of Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker to record the first two outs. Then he drilled the home plate umpire right in the middle of his forehead with a high fastball on his first pitch to Mookie Betts, after which there was a brief interruption of play that seemed to leave Juan rather discombobulated. He proceeded to walk Betts on four pitches, which brought 2025 World Series hero Will Smith (earning nearly $13M to catch for the Dodgers in 2026) to the plate. Smith hung a decent at bat on Morillo, and finally drilled the seventh pitch he saw out and over the fence just left of the batter’s eye in center field. Morillo was pulled for Paul Sewald, who recorded the last out, but it was too late. The damage was done. 3-2 Los Angeles

We still has a chance, I suppose, with Pavin Smith, Nolan Arenado, and Alek Thomas coming to the plate in the top of the ninth. Of course, they were going up against new FTD closer Edwin Diaz, who is earning $18.5M this year at the back end of the Los Angeles bullpen. Ten pitches and three flyouts later, this one was in the books.

Some Reasons for Optimism

This was a disappointing result, and a disappointing series, to be sure. That said, the Diamondbacks led each game, and in the latter two we carried that lead into the late innings. We all knew our bullpen was going to be a weakness this year, like it is just about every year, and the Los Angeles Dodgers are as complete a team from top to bottom as one can imagine. And we hung tough with them, and we made them work, and despite Ryne Nelson coughing up four in that unfortunate third inning last night, we were still in line to win the last two games. Kevin Ginkel was last night’s disappointment, and tonight that “honor” fell to Juan Morillo. But we played pretty well for the most part, all the way through. Facing a less stupidly funded team, we would likely have won at least two of these games, even with the flaws the Diamondbacks have. And, as someone pointed out early in tonight’s Gameday Thread, we won’t face the Dodgers again until the beginning of June, so we will by definition be facing less stupidly funded teams for the next two months. It’s rough to start the season getting swept and going down 0-3, but this certainly isn’t a sign that the sky is falling. It’s more a confirmation that, as we might have suspected, water is wet.

• All Doyers player salary information courtesy of Spotrac.

Loss Probability Added, courtesy of FanGraphs

Robin Hood: Eduardo Rodriguez (5 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 2 BB, 5 K, 79 pitches, +23.0% WPA)
Little John: Joe Ross (1 IP 0 H, 0 ER, +10.8% WPA)
Hapless Country Bumpkin: Juan Morillo (2/3 IP, 1 H, 1 HR, 1 BB, 2 ER, -54.1% WPA)

The Gameday Thread saw some more inevitable falloff from the first two games, in part I suspect because the University of Arizona was punching their ticket to the NCAA March Madness Final Four (BEAR DOWN!), and also because, well, it’s really not a lot of fun to watch the Billionaire Boys Club play baseball on television if you’re not particularly a fan of billionaires. That said, we racked up 182 comments at time of writing. Comment of the game goes by popular acclaim to this one from gzimmerm, who saw the meatball that Snake_Bitten left in the middle of the plate, and didn’t miss it:

Anyway, because opening weekend is often weird in terms of scheduling, we have our only scheduled Sunday off day tomorrow, so I hope you can join us for the Diamondbacks home opener at Chase Field on Monday, when we take on the Detroit Tigers. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10pm AZ time, with Justin Verlander going for the striped cats and Michael Soroka going for us. I don’t feel great about Soroka occupying a spot in our rotation, but despite that I think could be a winnable game. If nothing else, it’s always nice to see the entire team get introduced during the extended pregame festivities.

As always, thanks for reading. And as always, go Diamondbacks!