Yankees Highlights: Bombers dominate Rangers with bullpen game

Sometimes, teams win in a laugher, like last night’s 10-1 rout in favor of the Yankees. Sometimes, teams snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, as the Yankees did twice in walk-off fashion against the A’s last weekend. And sometimes, teams win in nondescript ways, cruising to easy victories in which very little happens. Tonight, the Yankees won the latter type of game, using a bullpen game to easily dispatch the Rangers by a score of 4-1 and wrap up a solid homestand.

Winner of the Game

On the hitting side, we’ll highlight the man responsible for the most impactful play of the game, Aaron Judge. Judge muscled his 20th bomb of the year out to right to give the Yankees a two-run lead they would not relinquish:

Judge now has eight homers in his last 15 games, and Gary Sanchez isn’t discounting his chances of reaching 30. Judge also threw out Ronald Guzman attempting to stretch a single into a double.

More broadly, count today as a win for the bullpen game. Chad Green took the ball to start the game for the first time since his blow-up against Cleveland last month, but this time around, he and the relief corps generated outstanding results. Green struck out four in two scoreless innings, and was followed by seven innings of one-run ball from the bullpen. Together, the staff struck out 13 and walked just two. While the game was nominally close on the scoreboard throughout, the game never really felt much in question, thanks to a strong run-prevention effort all around.

Loser of the Game

Cory Gearrin allowed a solo home run to Rougned Odor in the ninth inning to spoil the shutout, so I suppose we’ll go with him. Not too much went poorly tonight, so the pickings are slim here.

Chart

FanGraphs