Aaron Judge made another heady move upward on the Yankees’ all-time home run list, just in time for a massive series this weekend in Boston.
With President Donald Trump in attendance on the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, No. 99 went deep twice to tie Joe DiMaggio for fourth in team history with 361 as the Yankees head into a wild-card showdown against the Red Sox at Fenway Park with a powerful 9-3 win over the Tigers in The Bronx on Thursday night.
Before the game, Trump met with the team in the home clubhouse and shook hands with Judge and others, telling them he believed the Yankees would “go all the way.”
Cam Schlittler, who was coming off his shortest outing among the first 10 starts of his rookie campaign, worked six innings of one-run ball as the Yanks (81-65) nudged a half-game ahead of the Red Sox for the first wild-card position in the American League with 16 games remaining.
Giancarlo Stanton also homered for the Yankees to tie Hall of Fame sluggers Jeff Bagwell and Vladimir Guerrero Sr. for 41st on MLB’s all-time list with 449.
The 24-year-old Schlittler gave up four earned runs on five hits with two walks over 1 ²/₃ innings last Friday in a 7-1 loss to the first-place Blue Jays, but Boone wasn’t fretting about the rookie bouncing back.
“[He is] the same guy. I love his makeup,” Boone said before the game. “He’s handled everything well. I mean, talk about a bump in the road, obviously his last outing. … Sometimes you’re in the arena and you get had. I don’t care how good you are, right? That’s the sport we play.
“But when I say unfazed, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t process it and try and grow from it. But I’m really excited about, first of all, how well he’s done, how he’s handled success up here, how he’s handled getting popped in the mouth up here. He’s done a really good job with that. And I think he walks out there expecting to perform really well, whether he’s coming off a really good, dominant start, or one where he got knocked around a little bit. I think he expects to go do well tonight.”
After Judge staked him to a 1-0 lead with his first solo blast off Detroit opener Tyler Holton in the first inning, Schlittler gave it back on a 12-pitch at-bat thats resulted in an RBI single by Dillon Dingler in the second.
But the Yankees reclaimed the lead the next inning on RBI hits by Ben Rice and José Caballero, who made his second straight start at shortstop after it was revealed that slumping starter Anthony Volpe has been dealing with a left shoulder issue that required a cortisone shot Wednesday.
After passing Yogi Berra two nights earlier for fifth place on the franchise homer list with No. 359, Judge matched DiMaggio’s total with another solo blast against reliever Sawyer Gipson-Long in the third, his 46th of the season.
The captain now trails only pinstriped icons Babe Ruth (659), Mickey Mantle (536) and Lou Gehrig (493) in team annals.
Stanton had been mired in a 3-for-36 slide since Aug. 29, but he also went yard two batters later for his 20th of the season after missing the first 10 weeks with elbow issues.
He sits three homers shy of tying Red Sox legend Carl Yastrzemski for 40th on the all-time list.
The Yanks sent nine batters to the plate and tacked on four more runs in the fourth on RBI knocks by Austin Slate and Cody Bellinger and a two-run single by Jazz Chisholm Jr. for a 9-1 lead.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
