Not only did Alex Verdugo get the Yankees off to a good start in a May 7, 2024, game hosting Houston with a three-run first-inning jack, the team made it stick by scoring in five of the next six innings. Anthony Volpe and Giancarlo Stanton also homered, and Luis Gil went six strong in the home team’s 10-3 win. Continue reading →
On May 6, 2019, the Yankees jumped “King” Felix Hernandez for a 7-0 lead after three innings on Luke Voit and Thairo Estrada home runs and a Brett Gardner homer and triple. CC Sabathia went five for the win, and the Yanks held on for a 7-3 win. Continue reading →
On May 5 (Cinqo de Mayo), 2001, Andy Pettitte beat the Orioles 5-2 by holding them to two hits and no earned runs over seven. Derek Jeter became the first Yankee to steal home in eight years when he accomplished that feat in the fourth inning.
Mammoth home runs and Mickey Mantle — the two just go together, and none more so than the bomb that almost went out of Yankee Stadium altogether until it struck the right field facade just inside the foul pole on May 5, 1956. The Mick hit another prodigious bomb the same day, Yogi Berra homered, and Hank Bauer delivered an inside-the-park job as the Yanks topped the A’s, 5-2. Continue reading →
In an electrifying performance on May 4, 1981, Yankee reliever Ron Davis struck out the last eight Angels batters in a row in a 4-2 win. In so doing, he tied Nolan Ryan‘s (accomplished twice) AL record for consecutive strike outs. Continue reading →
On May 3, 1936, Joe DiMaggio made his regular-season debut. Joe’s three hits included a triple, as he scored three runs and knocked in one in a 14-5 victory over the St. Louis Browns. Continue reading →
The Yankees prevailed over the visiting Guardians 4-2 on May 2, 2023, on an rbi (on his own home run) and two runs scored from rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe. Gerrit Cole pitched well through six, but Wandy Peralta, the second reliever in the seventh, got the win. Continue reading →
Yankee manager Aaron Boone had his worst (of many) 2023 day(s) on May 1, as he took the ball from Domingo German once he allowed a single with one down in the ninth on just 87 pitches. Having split 18 outs evenly between grounders and fly balls, Domingo had six K’s and a pop out, and led 2-0, with Jose Trevino having plated the first run with a third-inning home run. But closer Clay Holmes put the tying run on with his own error, then allowed back-to-back singles, with an Aaron Hicks error on the latter allowing the tying run to score. Wandy Peralta then issued a walk to re-load the bases, got a strike out, but walked in the lead run, for a painful 3-2 loss to the visiting Guardians. Continue reading →
Although I do sympathize with fans’ ire at long games, the Yanks have been having them with the Orioles for years, but particularly since the park at Camden Yards has been open. Taking advantage of a lull in my midweek work schedule in 1996, I traveled to Baltimore to see a two-game Yankees/Orioles set. The first became the longest nine-inning game in baseball history (to that point anyway), on April 30, 1996. The Orioles jumped all over poor Andy Pettitte for a 9-4 lead after two innings, but the Bombers fought back and tied it in the fifth, and won it 13-10, largely on the strength of a late Tino Martinez three-run home run. Jim Leyritz and Paul O’Neill homered too, and Paul’s was a mighty drive to right center that landed on a tile next to Boog’s Barbecue on Eutaw Street. The tile was marked to commemorate Paul’s homer’s landing point the next day (though no evidence remains except my eyewitness account, I believe). Continue reading →
Following a stunning offensive display the night before, the Yankees pounded the visiting Orioles 12-4 on April 29, 2017, although the number hangers and their roles in this one may surprise you. Supplying the firepower, Brett Gardner homered in both the first and second innings for his four rbi’s, and Austin Romine knocked in five with a sac fly and a single and home run, each for two runs. And although Aaron Judge of course homered as well, he scored four times with two walks and a single. Continue reading →
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 →
