The Yankees posted an unlikely extra-inning, come-from-behind victory over the visiting Orioles on April 28, 2017, one in which Baltimore held 5-0, 9-1, and 11-4 leads in regulation. One uplifting way to look at this is that uber-rookie Aaron Judge refused to lose, as it was his home runs in both the fifth and sixth innings that began the stirring comeback. Then Jacoby Ellsbury, incongruously penciled in to the cleanup spot, delivered his first career grand slam home run in the seventh, and Starlin Castro tied it with a three-run jolt with one down in the ninth. Displaying mercy to the beleaguered Orioles and to the worn-out crowd, the Yanks finished it quickly, with Matt Holliday following two walks and a strike out in the bottom of the 10th with a three-run bomb of his own, 14-11 Yankees! Continue reading →
April 27, 1947, was Babe Ruth Day in all major league parks. It’s ironic, and anticlimactic, that the Yanks were shut out, 1-0, on the day all of baseball honored the greatest power hitter there ever was. The Babe’s words to the 58,339 in attendance at Yankee Stadium were broadcast throughout the country and into every major league park. Let’s face it. The man is the greatest icon in modern American sport, and always will be. Continue reading →
Two highlights of the offensive explosion of the Yankees’ 12-8 win over the Orioles on April 26, 2022, is that Aaron Judge went yard on his 30th birthday, and that with his three bombs on the day, Anthony Rizzo took the major league lead with seven 2022 home runs. Continue reading →
Although he would become a Yankee at the coming trade deadline (on July 30), Lance Lynn fell 7-4 to the Bombers pitching for visiting Minnesota on April 25, 2018. Ironically, although Didi Gregorius accounted for the first two home team runs with an rbi single and a home run, Tyler Austin, who would be shipped to the Twins for Lynn, had the big blow, a three-run jolt in the third. Sonny Gray started but failed to finish the fifth, so Chad Green collected the win. Continue reading →
Yankee ace Gerrit Cole was dominant in a 10-2 victory over visiting Cleveland in The Stadium on April 24, 2022, striking out nine while spreading four harmless singles into the seventh inning. The offense was carried early, and throughout, by two-run home runs from Anthony Rizzo, DJ LeMahieu, and Aaron Judge. Continue reading →
April 23 is an amazing day in history. Seventeen years apart in the 16th Century it was the birthday of both Miguel Cervantes (“Don Quixote”) and then William Shakespeare (all those plays and sonnets). And on April 23, 1616, those two giants of Western Literature both passed away! Continue reading →
Three of the Yankees’ runs in a 4-1 win over visiting Cleveland on April 22, 2022, came across on two Aaron Judge home runs, but this was not to be an “All Rise” Day, but rather a coronation. Relieving Jameson Taillon to start the sixth inning, Michael King would strike out eight Guardian hitters through the eighth, seven of them in a row. Continue reading →
Let’s start April 21’s highlights with a thought about that fireplug player and oftentimes Yankee manager, Billy Martin. Billy has been accused of being feisty, a disrupter, of burning out pitching staffs, of many other things. But he won often, handling several different teams. This day in 1977 he reacted to a 2-8 slump in the previous 10 games by throwing up his hands in despair and choosing the day’s lineup by drawing players’ names out of a hat. First baseman Chris Chambliss was buried in the eight hole, but he drove in five runs with two doubles and a homer in an 8-6 Yankee win. Continue reading →
On a day with plenty of Yankee exploits, the one that stands out to this Yankee fan is that April 20, 1961, is the day the beloved, the awesome, the best (perhaps?) Yankee, was born. Happy Birthday, Don Mattingly, former Yankee hitting coach and bench coach, now Marlins manager, who unfortunately departed with Joe Torre as Joe Girardi took over as manager. The Hitman stroked 222 jacks and drove in 1,099 runs from 1982-1995, all of it with the team that plays its ball in the South Bronx. Having managed the LA Dodgers for a few years, Donnie was hired as the manager in Miami in 2016. Continue reading →
With Shohei Ohtani having pretty much decided an Angels/Yankees tilt in the Bronx with a two-run first-inning homer the day before, Aaron Judge sought to do the same in the April 19, 2023, battle, but rbi’s by the Halos in the fifth and the eighth sent this one to extras. But the Yankees plated Manfred Man runner Isaih Kiner-Falefa in the bottom of the 10th on a Gleyber Torres sac fly, 3-2 Yankees. Continue reading →
