Around the Empire: Yankees news - 2/25/17

Around the Empire

New York Daily News | Mike Mazzeo: Baseball is back. It’s only spring training and the points don’t matter. Either way, baseball is back and the Yankees made it an enjoyable game to watch. Didi Gregorius hit the first of forty dingers to come this season. Aaron Judge delivered an absolute monster shot that nearly cleared the scoreboard. Kyle Higashioka made his case for backup catcher with a homer of his own. Bryan Mitchell, competing for a spot in the rotation, threw two flawless innings. We got a glimpse at Clint Frazier, Miguel Andujar, Dustin Fowler, and Gleyber Torres. Three of those four players hit triples. Yay triples. Yay dingers. Yay baseball. go yankees go you are #1

Newsday | Erik Boland: As mentioned above, Bryan Mitchell is competing for a spot in the rotation this year. He competed for one last year and was sadly shut down due to injury. Before the Humbler took Mitchell away from us last year, he was the best pitcher in spring training. Joe Girardi seemed very pleased with his performance during yesterday’s game. Here’s hoping Mitchell continues to impress this spring. The MST3K puns and GIFs are waiting for him.

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: The youth movement was in full effect yesterday afternoon. It was also in effect the night before as the young pinstriped prospects enjoyed dinner with Alex Rodriguez. Dad-Rod took his children to a nice steakhouse and gave them the opportunity to ask him questions. Prospects like Judge and Torres did not waste this chance to pick at Coach-Rod’s brain and ask about his experiences. The kids are in good hands.

New York Post | George A. King III: Did we mention that Aaron Judge hit a monster dinger yesterday? Well he did. Onlookers were certainly impressed. Reggie Jackson was one such impressed onlooker. Judge told Reggie that he wanted to be like him. Reggie spoke after the game, saying that he wanted Judge to be better than him in regards to his strikeouts. Reggie hit a lot of dingers and whiffed at a lot of other pitches. Judge has a similar M.O. as we all know. Monster home runs are pretty nice though. Hopefully we see more of them.

New York Daily News | Mike Mazzeo: A lot of eyes are on Clint Frazier this spring and not just because of his Red Thunder-ish hair. Frazier is one of the highly touted prospects of the Yankees’ renewed farm system. Yesterday, Frazier hit a two-run triple and almost ran into an out. Reggie, who helped Frazier through a rough patch last year, was happy to see Girardi talk to him about his mistake. That’s what spring training is for. It’s good to have baseball back.

Didi Victory Tweet

It’s so great to have these back.