Yankees Highlights: Home sweet home

The Yankees needed a bit of a boost after falling flat in Tampa Bay over the weekend. A little home cooking never hurt this team, and they bounced back within the confines of Yankee Stadium with the Braves in town. The bats were on fire, the pitching held up long enough, and the Yankees walked away with a 9-6 win.

Winner of the Game

Aaron Judge just keeps raking. The superstar outfielder took back the MLB home run lead from Fernando Tatis Jr. with a solo shot to lead off the fifth, his ninth of the season. Judge crushed the ball into the Yankee bullpen, and is on pace for roughly 30 home runs in a 60 game season. Not too bad. He got an early exit from this game when Mike Tauchman pinch-hit for him in the sixth inning, but it doesn’t seem like an injury concern. Aaron Boone just wanted to give his slugger the rest of the night off with a comfortable lead. More on that later.

Luke Voit set the tone early for the Bombers, crushing a three-run shot into left field off of Braves starter Touki Toussaint. Voit has slid up the batting order with Gleyber Torres’ slump and Giancarlo Stanton’s injury, so having the first baseman mashing is a good recipe for success.

Honorable Mention: Mike Ford, Jordan Montgomery

Loser of the Game

The Yankees were cruising with an 8-0 lead in the sixth when Jordan Montgomery ran into some trouble. The left-hander had been working through a much more convincing outing than his last go in Philadelphia, but one mistake to Marcell Ozuna ruined the picture a bit. The three-run home run put some tarnish on his line, but it was an otherwise good performance from Monty.

It did, however, mean that the game would go into the bullpen’s hands beginning in the seventh, and that’s where the Braves nearly got back into the game. David Hale allowed his first two batters to reach, and Adam Ottavino couldn’t prevent an inherited run from scoring thanks to a fielding error by DJ LeMahieu. Luis Cessa entered for the start of the eighth, but could only get one out recorded. Again the defense hurt the Yankees, this time an error on Torres being the culprit. The bullpen wasn’t sharp until Chad Green and Zack Britton came on to close it out, but the defense failed the Yankees several times tonight, and almost let an easy win slip away.

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