Yankees 4, Phillies 2: Loud contact leads to a breakout seventh

Well, good job to Michael Kay and John Sterling. In what was the duo’s first game together in nearly two decades, I thought they worked well. They didn’t stumble over each other the way that some booth combos can, and Kay in particular settled nicely into the color commentary slot. The Yankees rewarded their efforts with a 4-1 spring training win over the Phillies.

It felt like, in the early goings, the Yankees should have put up more runs. Gary Sánchez cracked an RBI single in the fourth to get them on the board, but multiple guys had made extremely loud contact before that. Aaron Hicks walked twice, Giancarlo Stanton hammered a lineout at 120.1 mph (!) and Jay Bruce added a loud, long fly ball. The starting lineup was pretty close to what we’d see in a regular season game, and the regulars were all over the ball today.

Stanton in particular was the offensive star of the game, collecting two hits and logging the three hardest hit balls of the day. His second hit drove in two runs to break a seventh-inning tie, and Rob Brantley followed him up with an RBI single of his own. The Yankees rode that lead to the end of the game.

Domingo Germán came in needing to match Deivi García’s strong outing yesterday to keep pace in the competition for the fifth starter role. He did his job, striking out six in three innings, taking advantage of a pretty generous strike zone by getting at least three called strikes that were a little outside. The zone was wide for both sides, so I guess points for consistency.

He did leave a few fastballs out over the middle of the plate, which is a little concerning:

Germán’s fastball, interestingly enough, was spinning faster than usual. We’ll need to wait and see if that spin was effective, ie, whether the spin actually contributed to “rise”, or not. If it did, Germán can get away with fastballs in those locations, but if it’s not, top lineups in the regular season will take better control of the zone. He did throw more curveballs than fastballs, and you can see how effective he was at getting the breaker in for strikes, which is a nice hedge against a fastball that’s a little underpowered relative to the rest of the Yankee rotation.

Mike King and Nestor Cortes Jr both gave up runs, one on a Rhys Hoskins solo shot in the sixth, and a Luke Williams RBI single in the ninth. I thought King in particular looked like he labored, getting just four whiffs, although four of them came on his changeup which he should probably be throwing more than he does.

The Yankees take on the Tigers tomorrow from Lakeland, in a game that won’t be televised, but has a radio broadcast. Gerrit Cole will be among the guys tabbed for some work, and first pitch is scheduled for 1:05pm Eastern.