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.
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.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
