NEW YORK — The Yankees made two big splashes at the trade deadline to bolster what was already one of baseball's most fearsome offenses. The monstrous bats of the Yankees' starting nine showed its teeth on Tuesday night, putting up nine runs in the first four innings before setting a season-high in runs scored.
That offensive explosion early on was more than enough for the Yankees in a 13-1 victory over Baltimore, giving the Yankees their 57th win of the season and ground gained in the American League East standings.
Gary Sanchez started the Yankees' offense off with a two-out single in the second inning and scored on a Gleyber Torres RBI double for the first run of the game. All nine Yankees in the lineup batted in the third inning with five of them scoring, sparked by four straight hits. Run-driving hits by DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Sanchez, as well as a sacrifice fly by Torres, saw the Yankees lead grow to 6-0 by the third inning.
The biggest knock of the night came in the fourth inning as Stanton hit a three-run home run. Stanton parked a 2-2 pitch into the right-field bleachers for his 17th home run of the season, taking the large Yankees lead and putting it out of reach.
In the eighth, the Yankees tacked on more. Tyler Wade, who entered for LeMahieu earlier in the game, scored two on a one-out double. Wade would score on an RBI groundout by Anthony Rizzo. A batter later, Aaron Judge struck with his 22nd home run of the year, the 15th hit for the Yankees on the night.
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Luis Gil has been one of the strongest young arms in the Yankees' pipeline, notable for his strong fastball. Gil reached as high as 98.5 miles per hour as he pitched six shutout innings in his major league debut, earning the win on the mound.
The day began dire for the Yankees, who lost Jordan Montgomery to the COVID-19 injured list one day after losing ace Gerrit Cole to the same fate. Gil made his debut to fill in for Cole and did quite a good job of filling in the role.
Gil tossed six shutout innings, allowing four hits while walking one and striking out six across his 88 pitches. Gil became the first Yankees rookie to toss six shutout innings in his major league debut in almost three decades. The last to do so was Sam Militello during the 1992 season.
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Gil was not the only Yankees pitcher to make a major league debut on Tuesday. In fact, the first eight innings were all handled by players that had been called up for the first time earlier in the day. Following Gil was reliever Stephen Ridings, who struck out three of the four batters he faced in the seventh inning. Ridings threw with a great deal of strength, topping out at 100.9 mph in his first appearance for the Yankees.
In the eighth, the ball was handed to 27-year old Brody Koerner. Koerner had been a starter throughout the season for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, but came in to pitch the last two innings in relief. Koerner allowed the lone Baltimore run, an RBI double by Ryan Mountcastle that scored Cedric Mullins.
