Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Blue Jays bats wake up; Red Sox slog in the rain

The Yankees stayed hot last night, relying on noted power threat Jose Trevino to top the Baltimore Orioles 6-1 kicking off their four game series. Any time the Yankees take care of their own business, the out-of-town scoreboard is a little less important, but let’s still update ourselves on how New York’s rivals performed.

Detroit Tigers (13-23) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (21-15)

The Rays have been keeping a pretty good pace with the Yankees so far this season, so it’s always nice to see them drop a game when the Yankees win on the same night. Detroit’s pitching combined to limit a pretty talented lineup to two runs, winning Monday’s game 3-2 down in St. Pete.

The backbreaker came from Harold Castro, with the game tied in the top of the ninth:

This felt like a game the Rays would win with some Tropicana voodoo, so it’s good to see the Tigers, winners of four in a row, flip the script even if just for a night.

Seattle Mariners (16-20) vs. Toronto Blue Jays (19-17)

We all knew it was only a matter of time before the Blue Jays offense would light up. They’ve had a terrible May, paced by an lineup fourth-worst in baseball this month. But a team that features Vlad Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Teoscar Hernández is gonna start to hit, and the breakout may have started in their 6-2 over the Mariners.

Bichette went deep in the first inning, Matt Chapman added a long fly ball of his own, but perhaps most notably, Yusei Kikuchi turned in his third straight strong start. After being the worst pitcher in baseball for most of April, Kikuchi threw six shutout innings, allowing just a single hit and striking out six.

Houston Astros (23-13) vs. Boston Red Sox (14-21)

Speaking of potential breakouts:

Trevor Story’s been truly terrible for the Red Sox, like, sub-replacement level terrible. He does have two home runs in his last five games, albeit his only two home runs this season. The second one, above, tied the game against the Astros after a very long rain delay,

JD Martinez and Xander Bogaerts added big hits in the eighth inning, Xander’s of the two-run home run variety to put the game out of reach, and the Red Sox walked away with a 6-3 win. Hey, Boston gave us our third 6 in this recap, what could that mean...

Minnesota Twins (21-15) vs. Oakland Athletics (15-23)

Our recap is bookended by a pair of pitchers’ duels, or at least, no games where someone put up six runs. The Twins’ pitching staff continued their strong start to the season, with Chris Archer, Yennier Canó, Griffin Jax, and Tyler Duffy combining to allow just four hits, albeit with just a 5:2 K:BB ratio, in the Twins 3-1 win over the Athletics.

For Yankee fans, I think Trevino’s bomb makes us feel a little better about the catching situation, where the combination of excellent defense and the puncher’s chance either Trevino or Kyle Higashioka will run into one has been effective so far. Still, it makes the stomach flip just a little to see Gary Sánchez do this: