Yankees 7, Rays 2: Dinger party in the Bronx

When the Yankees acquired Giancarlo Stanton in the offseason, a lot of the reactions were along the lines of “he, Aaron Judge, and Gary Sanchez hitting back-to-back-to-back is going to be ridiculous.” Well flash forward a couple months, and it turns out, yes it is.

Judge, Stanton, and Sanchez each hit a two-run home run, powering the Yankees to a 7-2 win and a two-game sweep over the Rays. Oh, and Luis Severino was good again.

For all the good that happened for the Yankees, it was the Rays that scored pretty quickly in the top of the first. After Kevin Kiermaier hit a one-out single, C.J. Cron followed that with a double, scoring a run. Severino stemmed the damage there, thanks in part to a nice diving catch by Ronald Torreyes.

That deficit was then immediately erased in the bottom of the first. First, Brett Gardner led off the game for the Yankees with a single. Two batters later, Stanton demolished a Blake Snell pitch, putting it over the wall in left. Suddenly the boos from yesterday were gone, and it was 2-1 Yankees.

Two innings later, it was Gary’s turn. Two batters after Judge reached on a walk, Sanchez took a Snell pitch to right for another two-run home run.

The Yankees added even more in the fourth. Tyler Austin drew a lead-off walk, was able to move to second on a stolen base, and advanced to third on a fly out to right. Torreyes then brought him home with a single. After that, it was Judge’s turn to complete the trifecta. With Torreyes still on first, Judge hit his own two-run home run, another deep one to left. That extended the Yankees’ lead to six runs, and the heart of the order all had a dinger each.

Throughout all that, Severino was having a mostly drama-free afternoon. From the second to seventh innings, he allowed just three batters to reach base. In two of those instances, they were then immediately erased by a double play in the next at bat.

Severino came back out for the eighth inning. He gave up a single to Adeiny Hechavarria, but got a ground out against the next hitter before being pulled. Hechavarria ended up coming around to score against Adam Warren later in the inning. That gave Severino a final line of 7.1 innings pitched, allowing two runs on five hits and a walk, while striking out seven. He’s now allowed just six hits in 13 innings this season.

Aroldis Chapman finished things off with a scoreless inning in the ninth, as the Yankees completed a two-game sweep.

The nice thing about having the three all-world hitters is that one can pick up the slack if the other two are off. However, all three doing something big in one game is something else.

Box score.