Aaron Judge hits two of Yankees’ six homers in 14-4 win over Phillies

Aaron Judge hit two of the Yankees‘ six home runs in a 14-4 thumping of the Phillies on Monday night in Philadelphia.

The Yanks’ slugger now has 38 homers and 99 RBI on the season as New York improved to 63-45 to remain 1.0 game behind Baltimore in the race for the AL East crown.

Here are the takeaways…

– Judge wasted no time making his mark on the game with two down in the first inning, cranking a solo shot on a hanging Zack Wheeler slider 406 feet to left field (105 mph off the bat) for his 38th home run of the season.

And in the seventh, after Juan Soto grabbed his second hit of the night with a single to left, Judge hit his second homer driving a 1-1 hanging slider from Philly reliever Yunior Marte for a towering 430-foot shot (105.4 mph) to left.

– The Yanks struck twice in the second first Jazz Chisholm got a fastball in on the hands and drove it just over the wall the opposite way in left for a 348-foot homer. The ball just kept carrying on a warm night in Philly, it had just a .160 expected batting average per Baseball Savant.

And with two down, Ben Rice got a fastball up and in and clobbered a dinger 407 feet to right center. It is his seventh homer of the season good for a 3-0 lead.

– Anthony Volpe got in on the action driving his ninth home run of the season getting a 2-2 breaking pitch just over the wall in left for a two-out, two-run dinger in the eighth.

– Pitching with a lead right away, Luis Gil allowed just one runner in the first two frames but ran into a bit of trouble in the third. The righty allowed a pair of weak contact singles to put two on and nobody out. But after getting a strikeout on a nasty slider and walking the bases loaded, Gil allowed a run on a slow roller to third that couldn’t be the twin killing.

With one down in the fourth, Gil left an 0-2 changeup up and over the middle of the plate and Brandon Marsh launched it (409 feet, 108.6 mph) to the second deck in right to temporarily cut the Yanks’ lead to one.

Gil struggled with command of his changeup, but it didn’t matter as he had his slider working, getting 12 called strikes and whiffs on 37 pitches through five frames accounting for three of his seven strikeouts.

Trouble found the right-hander in the sixth starting with a leadoff four-pitch walk and one-out infield single. Marsh stung again with an RBI single past a diving Rice at first which covered the corners to end Gil’s night. And Michael Tonkin needed just one pitch to end the frame, getting JT Realmuto to hit into a tailor-made 6-4-3 double play.

Gil’s final line: 5.1 innings, three runs, five hits, three walks and eight strikeouts on 92 pitches (59 strikes).

– The game wasn’t always a laugher as the visitors came to bat up 3-2 in the fifth. But they gave Soto a big chance to bust the game open as they loaded the bases with one out on singles from Volpe and Rice before Alex Verdugo worked a walk. And on the eighth pitch of the at-bat, Soto served a 3-2 curveball that one-hopped the wall to score two on a double.

Wheeler rebounded to get Judge looking for the second time of the night, but Austin Wells took a 1-2 curveball up in the zone and ripped a two-RBI triple off the wall in deep right-center to make it 7-2.

– Working with a good lead, Tonkin had a rough seventh, allowing a run on a single, a walk, and a pair of wild pitches. Yoendrys Gomez survived a two-out Gleyber Torres error and a single to put runners on the corners for a clean eighth. He shut the door allowing just an infield hit in the ninth.

– In his first game back from the IL, Giancarlo Stanton went 0-for-4 before he worked a walk in the ninth against Phillies second baseman turned reliever Bryson Stott.

– Chisholm then added his second homer of the night with a two-run shot off Stott. The new addition made his first career start at third base and got a chance in the bottom of the first, ranging to his left and starting a 5-4-3 double play. He was smooth on all four chances he had, including a fine play on a liner in the seventh.

His only blemish of the night came on the bases when he was picked off first base to end the fourth inning. Chisholm went 2-for-4 with two homers, a strikeout and a walk.

Highlights

MVP of the game: Aaron Judge

Judge struck out three times, but his two home runs and three RBI on the night make him tough to ignore here. To his credit, Soto had three hits in five at-bats with two doubles and three batted in.

What’s next

The Yanks and Phillies are back in action on Tuesday night for a 6:40 p.m. first pitch.

Gerrit Cole (5.40 ERA and 1.457 WHIP in 35.0 innings) gets the ball for the visitors for his eighth start of the season. Philadelphia is sending out right-hander Aaron Nola (3.44 ERA and 1.064 WHIP in 130.2 innings) for his 22nd start of the campaign.