NEW YORK (AP) — Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three home runs on the first three pitches.
Aaron Judge followed Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger to combine for unprecedented fireworks Saturday, starting one of the most memorable days of Judge's already indelible career.
“It was electric, from the stadium crowd to just the guys in the dugout locked in and fired up,” Judge said after homering three times, including a grand slam, and setting a career high with eight RBIs in the New York Yankees' 20-9 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Major League Baseball said this was the first time a team homered on its first three pitches since tracking of pitch counts began in 1988.
Before the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone saw Reggie Jackson, who hit three home runs on three pitches in Game 6 of the 1977 World Series.
“Maybe it was that,” Boone said.
New York hit a team-record nine homers, matching the 1999 Cincinnati Reds against Philadelphia and one shy of the major league mark set by Toronto vs. Baltimore in 1987. The first of the Reds' homers that day was hit by Boone.
Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Oswald Peraza also homered on the unusually warm 78-degree afternoon.
“Kind of a weird, crazy game,” Boone said.
Five of the homers were off old friend Nestor Cortes, dealt from the Yankees to Brewers in December, including four in the first inning. Cortes left the ballpark without speaking to reporters in what the Brewers said was a miscommunication.
“My heart goes out to him because he’s a great, great, young man, great teammate,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “Your heart just hurts for him.”
Wells homered in the first as the Yankees burst ahead 4-0 in the first four-homer first inning in team history. Volpe hit a three-run drive in the second for a 7-3 lead, and Judge's ninth career slam opened a 12-3 margin in the third against Connor Thomas.
Chisholm made it back-to-back long balls, and the Yankees became the first big league team to hit seven homers in the first three innings.
Judge added a two-run homer in the fourth off Thomas, who was making his big league debut.
With a chance to become the 19th player to hit four homers in a game, Judge hit a sixth-inning fly that short-hopped the right-field wall for an RBI double. The two-time AL MVP flied out to deep left in the eighth against former teammate Bauers, an outfielder and first baseman making a mop-up appearance.
“He told me when I was on deck, is he was going to hit me in the shoulder. He didn't want to see a fourth home run,” Judge said, smiling.
He flied out on a 55.3 mph offering.
“Gave him the best curveball I had and he still hit it pretty good,” Bauers said.
Batting leadoff for the first time in his 15-year major league career, Goldschmidt drove a fastball 413 feet into the Brewers’ bullpen in left field. Wells homered starting Thursday's opening win, also atop the lineup for the first time.
Goldschmidt had just gotten back to the dugout when Bellinger sent a fastball into the right-field bleachers.
“I was putting my equipment up and, yeah, I just heard it and looked up and I saw it flying out of there," Goldschmidt said.
Judge had to settle himself.
"Bleacher Creatures are jumping up and down. Kind of got to step out and catch your breath there for a second before you step in the box because it kind of gets the heart rate going a little bit," he said.
His first homer, on a cutter, went 468 feet and appeared to land in left field's second deck.
“It was like just bang! bang! bang!” Bellinger said.
Judge had his 40th multihomer game. While proud, he didn't want to make too much of one win, framing it within last year's World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. He also noted the Yankees' sloppiness: five errors that led to four unearned runs and caused Max Fried to be removed with a high pitch count after 4 2/3 innings, costing him a chance to win in his Yankees debut.
“We’re on a mission,” Judge said. “A lot of guys are disappointed with what happened last year, myself included, and it starts with and preparing ourself now.”
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
