Former Yankee and current Mets pitcher Luis Severino was in a group chat with some of his former teammates who told him that he was “afraid of them” when it came to facing his old friends. Severino responded by saying, “I’m not afraid of you guys. Right now, you only have two good hitters,” when referring to Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.
It was probably a case of some good natured ribbing between ex-teammates, but Severino may have been prescient when it came to his old team.
Soto went 4 for 4, reached base five times and scored three times while Judge had two hits, an RBI and a run scored as the Yankees began the nominal second half with a 6-1 win over the Tampa Bay Rays before a sellout crowd of 47,036 at Yankee Stadium last night.
Soto had two singles and two doubles and a walk and is now slashing .303/.433/.569 with an OPS of 1.002. “He was on it all night, he’s had good success in his career, I think against (14 for 31, .452 coming in) [Zach] Eflin,” Yankee Manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s an impressive night to go out there and a bunt single for good measure.”
Ace Gerrit Cole did his part with six strong innings and was backed by the dynamic duo of Soto and Judge who combined for six of the Yankees’ nine hits and four of the six runs scored.
Even with the two behemoths in the lineup having big nights, it took a bases clearing double by Anthony Volpe that keyed a four run inning after it appeared the Yankees would leave the bases loaded.
The game was scoreless in the third when the Yankees loaded the bases with no one out in the third. Ben Rice led off with a walk, Soto bunted for an infield single and Judge walked on four pitches.
Alex Verdugo, who continues to struggle (.157 over his last 23 games), bounced out to shortstop as the first run scored. With runners on second and third and one out, Gleyber Torres hit a soft liner to first as the runners held.
Just as the inning appeared to be melting away, Austin Wells walked, one of his three on the night, to reload the bases. Anthony Volpe then lined a 1-2 pitch from Rays starter and loser Zach Eflin down the left field line for a bases clearing double that gave the Yankees a 4-0 lead.
“I feel like we’ve had a lot of games where we’ve had traffic, we’ve pressured them, maybe where we just didn’t get that one big hit. That was a big, back breaking hit that we needed,” Boone said.
With two out in the fourth, Soto scored on a “little league” home run. The Yankee right fielder lined a shot up the gap in left center field that went to the wall. Rays left fielder Randy Arozarena had trouble handling it off the wall and was charged with an error as Soto took third.
The relay throw came to second baseman Richie Palacios but his throw hit Soto in the back and the ball went out of play to allow him to score as the Yankees took a 5-0 lead.
With two out in the sixth, Soto doubled again and scored on Judge’s RBI single to cap the scoring.
Cole took the cue and looked like his Cy Young winning self from last season. The Yankee ace, who was making his sixth start of the season, gave up a run on six hits with one walk and eight strikeouts as he is rounding into form. “I thought from his bullpen to the beginning of the game, it was the sharpest I’d seen him this year. I think he had everything working for him,” Wells said.
“I had a little bit of everything working. Once we got a lead, started attacking the zone,” Cole said.
As Cole took the mound for the second inning, he was hit with a pitch clock violation by home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott. Cole disagreed with the call and was visibly upset. “I didn’t agree with it and I did lose my composure and quite frankly, I thought Quinn didn’t and I’m thankful he kept me in the game,” Cole said.
The call seemed to get Cole fired up. On the first real pitch of the inning, he waited until the last second of the pitch clock to deliver a fastball to the Rays Josh Lowe. Cole fell behind 3-0 but he got Lowe to fly out and retired Jose Siri and former Yankee Ben Rortvedt on swinging strikeouts. As he walked off the mound, Cole stared at Wolcott.
“I was fired up,” Cole said. “I was desperately trying to calm back down. Spiked a fastball in the dirt, I’d used the whole clock.”
After the Siri strikeout, Wells showed some leadership as he went out to the mound to calm his pitcher down and make sure he stayed in the game.
“With him being the best pitcher on our team and in the league, for any unnecessary reasons to leave a game early, it’s only hurting us,” Wells said. “Just being able to try and keep him and everybody cool headed, keep him in the game for as long as he did.”
Cole’s only blemish came when Brandon Lowe led off the sixth with his 10 th home run of the season to account for the Rays’ only run of the night. Randy Arozarena followed the homer with a double but Cole got the next three hitters to finish a strong outing.
The Yankees can’t count on their dynamic duo to come through every night, so it’s going to take the other hitters to be more productive if they hope to make a run for the AL East.
It’s become more and more apparent that the opposing pitchers have no fear of walking Judge as Verdugo is not providing any protection behind him. With Wells starting to develop as a hitter, the Yankees may want to think about moving him up to the four hole and moving Verdugo to the lower third of the batting order.