Soto homers twice in Yankees’ win
NEW YORK (AP) — Juan Soto homered twice, Aaron Judge and Alex Verdugo also went deep and the New York Yankees beat the Seattle Mariners 7-3 on Wednesday night to stop their first two-game losing streak in three weeks.
Nelson Cortes (3-4) gritted through five scoreless innings for the AL-best Yankees (34-17), who improved to 3-0 when Judge and Soto both homer. The three homers by Soto and Judge were opposite-field drives off Bryce Miller (3-5).
“These homers were really exciting for me because I’m going to the opposite way,” Soto said.
Soto had three RBIs with his second multihomer game of the homestand and 19th of his career. He has 13 homers and 40 RBIs, while Judge has 14 homers — 11 since late April — and 34 RBIs.
After the Yankees built a 5-0 lead, Cal Raleigh hit a threerun homer in the eighth off Luke Weaver, ending the reliever’s 18-inning scoreless streak. Verdugo hit a two-run drive against Austin Voth in the bottom half.
In a matchup of division leaders, Judge hit a first-pitch slider into the right-field seats after Anthony Volpe reached on an infield single in the first. Fifteen of the Yankees’ 73 homers have been hit in the first inning, including seven by Judge, all major league highs.
Soto drove a full-count sinker into the visitors’ bullpen in left in the third, also following a single by Volpe, then connected on another sinker on Miller’s first pitch of the fifth inning. He stood at the plate admiring his first homer, then watched the second while starting his trot.
Entertaining the crowd, Judge, Soto and Verdugo urged on different sections of the bleachers in a cheering competition during an eighth-inning pitching change.
“It’s just a good way to get the crowd into it,” Judge said. “Get them a little rowdy, man, they just want to cheer.”
Cortes allowed three hits and three walks with six strikeouts as Seattle ran up his pitch count with 22 foul balls in the first three innings. He needed 27 pitches in both the first and third innings and 20 in the second.
“A 2-0 start going back the second inning feels
Cortes said.
Mitch Garver’s third-inning drive hit about a foot from the top of the left-field wall and would have been a home run in 11 big league ballparks, but Garver wound up with just a single that put runners at the corners. out for good,”
Raleigh followed with an groundout.
Cortes is 3-1 with a 1.13 ERA at home and 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA on the road. The Yankees have had 10 straight starts of at least five innings allowing two runs or fewer for the third time in team history after 1968 and 1997.
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