Giancarlo Stanton and the Bronx Bombers made themselves comfortable in Petco Park on a warm October evening in Southern California.
Stanton hit a fabulous pummel in the ninth inning for New York’s fourth grand slam of the game, and the Yankees beat the Tampa Bay Rays 9-3 on Monday in the opener of their AL Division Series at Petco Park.
Stanton homered to immediately focus field on a 2-2 pitch from John Curtiss. The slugger made a few strides with his bat still in his grasp as he watched the ball sail through the wonderful San Diego evening air before starting his run.
A couple of fans recited “Let’s Go Yankees!” from an overhang on a place of business just past right field of the generally vacant ballpark.
“That SoCal air, man. That SoCal weather. That’s what it is,” said Stanton, who is from Los Angeles and won the Home Run Derby at Petco Park in 2016. He spent his initial eight seasons with the Marlins and has nine homers in 20 games at Petco Park.
Kyle Higashioka, another SoCal local, and Aaron Judge hit the tying and proceed grand slams off Blake Snell in the fifth to back champ Gerrit Cole. Clint Frazier hit an amazing shot into the second deck in left in the third.
The Bronx Bombers turned into the principal group in American League history to hit a great hammer in consecutive season finisher games. Gio Urshela associated in Game 2 of the first-round breadth against Cleveland. Two NL groups have done it, the 1977 Dodgers and 2011 Diamondbacks.
Judge said he’s agreeable in San Diego, and his folks were at the game.
“This is the first game my parents were able to come to as well. That’s huge. My dad for sure doesn’t miss more than a month at a time, and we’re in October now,” he said.
Game 2 in the best-of-five arrangement is Tuesday night, with 21-year-old freshman Deivi García set to turn into the most youthful Yankees pitcher to make a postseason start. Tyler Glasnow goes for the Rays.
Starting with this round, all postseason arrangement were moved to nonpartisan locales in view of the Covid.
The Yankees set an establishment precedent by hitting in any event three grand slams in three continuous postseason games. They are the subsequent group to do it in baseball history after the Rays did it in four straight in 2008.
Stanton has played in just 41 games in the course of the last two seasons on account of wounds.
“I feel great for him because I know this is what I envisioned for him last year,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s such a dangerous hitter in the middle of our lineup. When he’s controlling the strike zone, he’s as deadly as anyone.”
New York has 11 homers in three season finisher games this year. They are the most for any group in the initial three rounds of a postseason.
Groups that have outhomered the resistance are 13-0 in these end of the season games.
Tampa Bay overwhelmed the petulant ordinary season arrangement, going 8-2 against the opponent Yankees and winning the AL East by seven games over second-place New York.
With the schedule turned to October, it was an alternate story in their first postseason meeting.
“They can hit, there’s no secret in that,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “There’s nothing that was unexpected with them. They’ve just got some guys back that are healthier. There were a handful of players who didn’t have consistent reps against us or throughout the 60-game season due to injuries. They looked healthy tonight.”
The ball was flying for the Rays too against Cole in downtown San Diego. Randy Arozarena homered in the first and Ji-Man Choi built an inverse field, two-run shot in the fourth into the Rays warm up area in left-focus to give Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead.
Cole went six innings, permitting three runs and six hits while striking out eight and strolling two. The Yankees’ expert was pitching around 100 miles south of where he experienced childhood in Newport Beach before playing at UCLA. Cole beat Tampa Bay twice in a year ago’s ALDS with Houston.
Snell, the 2018 AL Cy Young Award champ, was the washout. He pitched five innings and permitted four sudden spikes in demand for six hits while striking out four and strolling two.
New York’s Aaron Hicks, who’s from San Pedro in the Los Angeles zone, hit a fielder’s choice in the first and a RBI single in the ninth.
Arozarena tied it in the lower part of the first before Frazier gave the Yankees the lead in the second. Choi’s shot in the fourth put Tampa Bay ahead 3-2.
Higashioka, who’s from Huntington Beach in Orange County, hit a line shot into the seats in left beginning the fifth. Judge, who’s from Northern California, lined his shot into the left-field situates too.
It was Judge’s tenth career postseason homer.
DEBUT
Tampa Bay reliever Shane McClanahan turned into the principal pitcher in baseball history to make his major class debut in a postseason game.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Beams: Added All-Star OF Austin Meadows to the program, however he wasn’t in the beginning arrangement. He had been out since Sept. 18 with a left sideways strain. Knolls struck out as a special hitter in the seventh.
PETCO PARK MEMORIES
Incidentally, Yankees third base mentor Phil Nevin was a slugger for the Padres when Petco Park opened in 2004 with huge outfield measurements. He and Ryan Klesko groused about how they’d pulverize a ball that would be a homer in different parks, just to watch it go for a long out. Nevin once hit a twofold that he thought ought to have been a homer. Subsequent to arriving at second, he signaled furiously toward head supervisor Kevin Towers’ container. The two later had words in the clubhouse.
The wall were moved in before the 2013 season.
UP NEXT
Yankees: Masahiro Tanaka was pushed back to Game 3 for the 5-foot-9 García (3-2, 4.98 ERA).
Beams: The 6-foot-8 Glasnow (5-1, 4.08) goes for his second season finisher triumph subsequent to beating the Blue Jays 8-2 to finish a two-game compass in the first round. He has won six straight choices and four successive beginnings going back to the regular season.
