Around the Empire: Yankees news - 4/2/18

MLB.com | Bryan Hoch: Yesterday’s game against the Blue Jays did not end well. The Yankees built up a 4-1 lead thanks to a Brandon Drury home run (for those tracking John Sterling’s call: “Aaron’s the Judge, but Brandon’s the Drury”). With two outs, two on and the score 4-3. After the game, Boone defended the decision to walk the injured (sorry, “has a dead shoulder”) Josh Donaldson in favor of the red-hot Justin Smoak. Boone said that both he and David Robertson agreed it was the right call and they just liked the match-up better.

New York Post | George A. King III: Sonny Gray’s start yesterday wasn’t exactly great, but it wasn’t poor either. He only allowed one run but failed to make it out of the fifth inning. Gray said he knew right away what kind of day he was going to have. Additionally, Boone said Adam Warren was playing catch yesterday and that he’s hopeful of Jacoby Ellsbury returning soon. He also added that the Yankees aren’t giving up on Dellin Betances this early after a poor outing on Saturday.

Newsday | Erik Boland: It’s Opening Day today! Well, not really but it’s the Yankees’ home opener. And there’s snow in the forecast. It’s only supposed to be one to three inches and supposed to stop by game time, so it shouldn’t delay the game, but the Yankees will be bundled up. Temperature at first pitch is expected to be around 39 degrees. Hopefully the Yankees can learn to let it go and not let the cold bother them.

Cut4 | Adrian Garro: Yesterday’s game didn’t have an ideal result or ending, but there were some good moments. One of those moments came courtesy of Aaron Judge. In the second inning, Russell Martin decided to challenge Judge’s arm. Just threw an absolute laser from right field to Austin Romine to easily nab Martin at the plate. It looked so effortless too.

Cut4 | Matt Monagan: In the most important news of the day: A-Rod. Alex Rodriguez has easily made the transition from player to broadcaster as he’s now in ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball booth. During his SNB debut yesterday, A-Rod struggled to open a water bottle. It honestly looked like he’d never had to open a bottle for himself before then and just didn’t know what the contraption in front of him was. Or maybe, it was just so flingin-flangin hard to open: