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It was an entire team effort on Tuesday night as every hitter except Aaron Judge scored at least one hit, the defense flashed the leather across the field and Jordan Montgomery knocked out two of the best players in baseball. Aided by overall success, the New York Yankees won the first game of that three-game set against the Los Angeles Angels 9-1 to give their regular their first win of the season.
In many ways, the first inning tells the story of the game in miniature. On the first pitch of the game, Taylor Ward fired the ball into foul territory in right field; Joey Gallo covered a lot of ground and made a basket catch on the run to retire the hot-hitting right fielder. Four pitches later, Shohei Ohtani drilled a 1-2 fastball at 107 mph, a safe home run over the left midfield wall. Luckily for the Yankees, a 6-foot-7 giant was patrolling midfield, and he just reached over the wall and turned it into a really long, really loud out.
Montgomery then fanned out next batter, Mike Trout, to four pitches to straighten out the top of the Angels lineup.
The bottom of the first was similarly comfortable for Yankees fans. After DJ LeMahieu’s grounder in second place for the first out of the inning, the next five batters made it safely to base. First, Judge reached on a four-pitch walk. With the big guy running in the game, Anthony Rizzo doubled into the right midfield gap via Trout’s jump attempt, allowing Judge to score all the way from the start, giving the Yankees a quick 1-0 lead. Gleyber Torres – who has been burning on the plate lately and came into the night with an OPS of exactly 1,000 in the last seven games – then brought Rizzo around to score with a double off the wall in left midfield; It was originally settled as a triple but the Angels successfully challenged his swing to carry him out of the pocket and he was ruled out.
However, Torres’ teammates picked him up immediately. Miguel Andújar lobbed a single into midfield that had everyone saying, “If only Gleyber hadn’t run over the bag.” Coming to the plate in the home pinstripes for the first time, Matt Carpenter cured that longing by hitting his second home run of the Season nailed a 93.3-mph job on the porch that covered 356 feet and had an xBA of just .150.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa landed in third place to end the inning, but the damage was already done and the Yankees had a quick 4-0 lead.
After Montgomery hit the minimum in the top of the second, the lineup went right back to work in the bottom of the second. Gallo got the ball rolling with a one-out single into left field and came all the way around to score from first place when LeMahieu drilled a double to left of his own.
Torres continued his big day by leading with a single at the bottom of third place and then continued his night of terrible luck by seemingly injuring his left shoulder and being thrown out trying to take second place to get hold of. Torres grabbed his shoulder after ramming him into Luis Rengifo’s left leg as he slid headfirst into the second basic pocket. Fortunately despite disappear immediately Walking down the tunnel to the dressing room with the coach, Torres came out and played the rest of the game without issue; However, given the number of injuries the Yankees have endured over the past few weeks, that will need to be monitored over the next few days.
Although the Yankees threatened in the fourth, the bases loaded with an out, and Judge and Rizzo fell due, they didn’t push runs through until the sixth, and did again after the leadoff hitter posted an out. This time it was Jose Trevino, who started with a one-out single and advanced to third as Gallo laced a double 102 mph into the right field corner; it was the outfielder’s first multi-hit game since May 13 against the White Sox. Then LeMahieu scalded a groundball to second base. While Trevino ran for contact, Rengifo threw the ball home. The throw beat the runner by a half-mile, but through an Ichiro-esque sorcery, Trevino managed to dodge the tag and score.
Gallo advanced to third in the game and would score himself with a judge sacrifice fly to extend the lead to 7-0.
When the offense landed at Noah Syndergaard and Kenny Rosenberg, Montgomery put it in cruise control against one of the American League’s toughest offenses. His last line is impressive enough — a four-hit run in seven innings, four hits (including both Ohtani and Trout) and just one foot — but it really doesn’t do justice to his performance. The left-hander never got in trouble, allowing only one extra base hit (a solo shot by Rengifo in the 7th inning) and facing only one batter with a runner in scoring position throughout the inning.
Of course, part of what made the night so easy for Monty was having the defense come into play behind him. In addition to the two first inning plays mentioned in the recap above, numerous other Yankees flashed the leather tonight. First, Trevino and Rizzo had to team up to catch Matt Duffy, who went too far off first base bag to finish the second inning.
In the fifth, Torres made a smart play, wide to the right and made an off-balance throw to snap Max Stassi first out of the inning for the second.
And then in the sixth, IKF stole an RBI single from Trout through the left side of the infield, dived to his right and threw a punch at first base to end the inning and keep the shutout intact.
Miguel Castro replaced Montgomery in the round of 16 and immediately went about making every Yankees fan sweat for a reason other than the scorching heat of the night. Juan Lagares led the inning with a double, and old friend and Bronx native Andrew Velazquez played singles to put runners in the corners without anyone falling out and the top of the order due. However, Castro knocked out Ward, prompting both Ohtani and Trout to do gentle flyouts into midfield to get out of his self-inflicted troubles.
Concerned about the bullpen’s tendency to make things interesting lately, the lineup took matters into their own hands at the end of round eight. Kiner-Falefa led the inning with a single. Trevino then capped a big night with his third home run of the season, a 379-foot blaster into left field seats.
It was now 9-1 in favor of the Yankees, and although David McKay did his best to make it interesting by loading bases in the top of ninth place, that’s where the score would end up being.
Montgomery finally gets his first win of the season, just in time for the end of May (in a fair world that would have happened long ago), while Syndergaard is burdened with the loss. With the win, the Yankees improve to a whopping 34-15, a full 19 games over .500. They’re looking to bring that back to straight 20 tomorrow night when Nestor Cortes takes on Reid Detmers, with the first pitch scheduled for 7:05 p.m. ET.
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