PITTSBURGH (AP) — Aaron Judge hit a grand slam for his leading 30th home run in the Major League and the New York Yankees routed the Pittsburgh Pirates 16-0 on Wednesday night to split their two-game interleague series.
Luis Severino threw six dominant innings and Aaron Hicks also had a grand slam, as New York scored 11 runs in the eighth and ninth to make it a joke.
Judge became the first Yankees player to hit 30 home runs before the All-Star break twice in his career when, in the eighth, he turned on a pitch from Pittsburgh reliever Manny Banuelos—who took over from New York last weekend—and screamed it to the left. sent. field seats for his third career slam.
Hicks cleared the bases in the ninth when he went deep against Pirates utility infielder Josh VanMeter, who made his third relief appearance of the season.
Giancarlo Stanton† Josh DonaldsonJoey Gallo and Kyle Higashioka also homered for New York to lift the Yankees’ season tally to 139 home runs, easy tops in the majors.
Severino (5-3) gave up four basehits while striking out three without walking to record his first win in over a month. The righthander retired 12 consecutive batters and retired 18 of the last 20 batters he faced after giving up a single to Ke’Bryan Hayes and a double to Bryan Reynolds to start the bottom of the first.
The win ended a two-game slip for New York, which started the second half of the season with the same recipe that propelled the Yankees to the best record in the majors and second-best start in franchise history. 81 games brought: dominant start pitching and a lot of power.
Donaldson and Gallo names Mitch Keller (2-6) twice deep in the span of three pitches in the sixth.
Donaldson’s seventh of the season sailed well to the left field seats. The buzz of a crowd with a healthy number of Yankees fans, bolstered by the team’s first visit to Pittsburgh since 2017, had barely died down when the struggling Gallo—who received a confidence vote from manager Aaron Boone before the game—shot to Pittsburgh. sent. the hall way outside the wall in right-center for his 10th of the season to make it 4-0.
The judge’s laser — ball exit speed was 115 mph — clearing the bases in the eighth completed a three-hit feat. DJ LeMahieu singled three times and drove in a few runs for the Yankees, who improved to 3-3 on a four-city, 10-game road trip after a season-high 22 hits.
Reynolds had two of Pittsburgh’s four hits, but the Pirates were unable to score against Severino and three New York relievers.
Keller worked in and out of trouble for six innings, giving up four runs on a season-high 10 hits with a walk and seven strikeouts. He was long gone by the time New York overwhelmed Pittsburgh’s overstretched bullpen.
TRAINERS ROOM
Yankees: Kept 1B Anthony Rizzo out of lineup for second straight game due to back stiffness. Boone said Rizzo was “definitely better” than Tuesday when the 32-year-old was a late scribble because he looked, as Boone put it, “totally twisted”.
Pirates: OF Greg Allen (hamstring) was scheduled to begin rehabilitation assignment in Class A Bradenton. Allen, who claimed waivers from the Yankees last fall, has not played all season after pinching his left hamstring during spring practice and then injuring his right hamstring during rehab.
UNDERWAY
The Yankees reinstated reliever Miguel Castro from the restricted roster and assigned reliever Ryan Weber to command.
Pittsburgh reinstated reliever Yerry De Los Santos from the COVID-19 list. The Pirates selected reliever Cam Vieaux to Triple-A Indianapolis and named reliever Austin Brice for assignment.
NEXT ONE
Yankees: Head to Boston for the first time this season as they kick off a four-game weekend series at Fenway Park on Thursday night. Gerrit Cole (7-2, 2.99 ERA) takes on Boston’s Josh Winckowski (3-2, 3.12) in the opener.
Pirates: Play a day-night doubleheader in Cincinnati on Thursday. Roansy Contreras (2-2, 4.02) starts in Game 1, with Bryse Wilson (1-4, 7.49) in Game 2.
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