The Yankees turned the tables on Toronto in the Stadium on April 12, 2022, shutting them out 4-0 after having fallen 3-0 the day before. Aaron Hicks‘s two-run second-inning homer was all the scoring they would need, and Giancarlo Stanton capped matters with a sac fly in eighth. Nestor Cortes pitched well, but left before five innings were complete, so Clay Holmes garnered the win. Continue reading →
On April 11, 1907, Roger Bresnahan became the first player to wear shin guards playing for the Giants in the Polo Grounds.
On April 11, 1912, the Yankees wore the pinstripes for the first time in the opener against the Red Sox at Hilltop Park. The locals (playing on the “Hilltop,” they were the “Highlanders”) took a 2-1 lead in the first against Smoky Joe Wood, but two of the four tallies Boston pushed across in the ninth scored on Wood’s single in the 5-3 New York loss. Continue reading →
The Yankees fell 5-2 to Miami in the Stadium on April 10, 2024, after Jake Burger (on his 28th birthday) crowned a four-run third inning with a three-run jack off Marcus Stroman. Both Yankee runs came late, from a Giancarlo Stanton home run and a Juan Soto rbi single. Continue reading →
There are plenty of Yankee- and baseball-related events to talk about that happened on April 9, including the death of a Hall of Famer. But the most significant item in this Yankee fan’s experience on that day occurred on 1996 Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. The Opener is an event that is longingly awaited every year, but the uplifting and exciting, then excruciating, five-game loss to the Seattle Mariners in the 1995 ALDS had left Yankee fans hungry for big-time winning baseball. So 50,000-plus suffered and froze their way to a 7-3 victory over Kansas City behind the gritty Andy Pettitte through a nonstop snowstorm that day. None realized that the day would have a second highlight with the almost offhand Yankee offer of a free ticket to one of three upcoming games to all who had suffered through the conditions. Continue reading →
April 8, 2022, served as a quite late Opening Day due to a players/owners labor disagreement with the ownership lockout, and it began poorly for the Yankees. Ace Gerrit Cole, forced to be idle after warming up with the pregame ceremonies slowly unfolding, surrendered three first-inning runs to the Red Sox, and the Yankees battled from behind the whole game. Anthony Rizzo‘s two-run homer in the first got them close, and home runs from Giancarlo Stanton (in the fourth) and DJ LeMahieu (in the eighth) tied the game heading into extras. Boston’s ghost runner scored in the 10th on a Xander Bogaerts single off Michael King, but Gleyber Torres, on the bench for this opener, tied it with a pinch hit sac fly. Finally, a Josh Donaldson single won it in the 11th, 3:56 from the 1:08 first pitch, 6-5 Yankees. Continue reading →
One day before a total eclipse of the sun, the Yankees pounded visiting Toronto on April 7, 2024, largely on a five-run third inning punctuated by a Giancarlo Stanton grand slam. Anthony Volpe had three singles, and scored twice, neither of them in the big inning. Continue reading →
Coming off having stroked a two-run single that gave the Yanks a lead they would not relinquish in his second Pinstriped game just two days previous, Jay Bruce gave the Bombers an early lead with a home run in a 7-2 win over visiting Baltimore on April 6, 2021. Alas, it was to be his lone roundtripper and the third of Jay’s three Yankee rbi’s, as he would retire after playing six more games. Aaron Judge would carry the action following Bruce’s blast, with a home run and four rbi’s. Gerrit Cole would strike out 13 over seven innings for the win. Continue reading →
New to the Yankee rotation Marcus Stroman pitched great in the 2024 home opener on April 5, but so did Yusei Kikuchi in Toronto’s 3-0 win. Both starters allowed four hits and no runs into the sixth (Stroman finished 6; Kikuchi just 5.33). But Ernie Clement drilled lefty Caleb Ferguson‘s second pitch over the wall in left to start the seventh. The Jays didn’t need any more, but Nick Burdi was reached for back-to-back singles to start the top of the ninth, and the hard-throwing righty brought both around with three wild pitches. Continue reading →
Even the most grizzled and veteran Yankee fan will have to admit that April 3, 2009, is a huge day in Yankee history. With the venerable old Stadium being slowly chipped away at across 161st Street, it was on this day that the team opened their new Palace in what would become a Championship season, just as they enjoyed when they opened the original 86 years previous. Would the magic make it across the street? Most doubts were dispelled when Hideki Matsui hit a two-run home run off the right field foul pole in the third inning and Cody Ransom thudded a high drive off the top of the left field pole for three more runs in the fourth. Chien-Ming Wang started the 8-5 exhibition victory over the NL Chicago Cubs, who started ex-Yankee Ted Lilly. Mariano Rivera pitched a rare sixth inning. Continue reading →
