Yankees 10, Royals 1: Wells, Judge, Stanton bring fireworks to Kauffman (2024)

The Yankees’ offense had another explosive night, and Marcus Stroman put up a bounce-back sharp performance as the Yanks pounded the Royals on Tuesday night, 10-1. The Yankees continued their incredible run against the AL Central, winning their 14th game in a row against the division this season. According to the YES broadcast, it is the most consecutive victories in franchise history against a single division. The Yankees are now 48-21 on the year and still lead the Orioles by 2.5 games.

Brady Singer entered Tuesday with nice numbers on the season, but the Yankees did not give the 27-year-old any time to settle in. Anthony Volpe began the festivities with a leadoff triple, his seventh of the season. It hit the top of the wall, less than a foot from being a homer. Spacious Kauffman Stadium was one of three ballparks where it would have stayed in the park according to Baseball Savant. After a walk to Juan Soto, Aaron Judge blooped a single to right field to knock in the shortstop. Then on a Giancarlo Stanton grounder to third, Soto dashed home and slickly avoided the catcher’s tag to tally a second run in the first frame.

Few things in baseball are more aesthetically pleasing as a close play at home plate:

In the bottom of the first, Stroman found trouble early. Bobby Witt Jr. used his speed to turn what looked like a single into a double, and the Yankees starter walked Salvador Perez on an uncompetitive four pitches. However, as he has done all year, he did not break with runners on base, and forced a MJ Melendez groundout. Stroman had an 81.1 percent left-on-base rate coming into this performance, and he still stranded his share of runners.

Stroman generated grounders early, which increased the opportunities for Volpe to do something spectacular at short, like this recovery he made in the second inning:

In all, Stroman forced 10 groundouts. Compared to his last outing, he did a much better job tonight finding the edges of the zone. Here is a look at his locations and pitch type for all his outs tonight that required a defensive play:

The Yankees broke things open in the fourth inning against Singer. With two runners on in the fourth following a Alex Verdugo single and a Stanton hit-by-pitch, Anthony Rizzo had a productive at-bat by moving the runners over on a groundout to the left side. That set up Gleyber Torres to cash with a sharp liner single to left field to bring in Verdugo.

Gleyber’s hit made the score 3-0, but Austin Wells brought forth the dagger of the inning. The catcher socked a three-run dinger for his second homer of 2024, punishing Singer for a pitch located middle-middle.

Stroman began to coast after the first inning with some help behind him. Rizzo may have not made much noise at the plate going 0-for-5 (although he had some hard-hit balls tonight), he helped the team in the fourth inning with this sweet running over-the-shoulder catch:

Rizzo also made a nice scoop to close out the fourth frame. On top of his struggles at the plate, the former Gold Glover winner has had some poorly-timed fielding mishaps at first base this year. It was nice to see him contribute with his glove in his first game after returning from a two-day break to reset.

The Yankees were able to tag for Singer for one last run against him in the sixth. Rizzo reached base on a sharply-hit ball that was ultimately ruled an error by second baseman Nick Loftin. Wells made it a multi-hit night with a crisp liner to right field. Oswaldo Cabrera’s single brought home Rizzo to grow the Yankees’ lead to 7-0.

Stroman finished the night on a sour note thanks in part to a Witt single and a walk by Vinnie Pasquantino. With two outs and knowing it was likely his final batter for the night, as he surpassed the 100-pitch mark, he battled hard with Nelson Velázquez that looked like it could have been a candidate for our Peter Brody’s Sequence of the Week, but he was not able to finish off the inning, missing on 3-2 slider to walk his last batter and leave the game with the bases loaded. Ron Marinaccio came in and, to the great benefit of Stroman’s ERA, promptly fanned Drew Waters, finishing him off by blowing a 94.6-mph four-seamer by him. It ended the last threat of the night by Kansas City.

Thanks to the clutch punchout by Marinaccio, Stroman finished the night with his fifth shutout effort of the season. In 5.2 innings, he allowed four hits, three walks, and recorded one strikeout. He locked in and got outs when runners were in scoring position, a key factor for his success this season. Coming into this game, he held a .143 batting average against with runners in scoring position, which ranked fifth in the league.

With a 7-0 lead, the Yankees sluggers ended the night with some fireworks. In the seventh, Judge bashed his 25th homer of the season to expand the lead to 9-0 since Soto (naturally) reached base before him.

We are in the zone now where it is worth staying up, even with a comfortable lead, just to see if Judge can add another to his homer tally. As YES Network noted, the Yankees’ captain now has 21 homers in 41 games, which is unreal.

For good measure, Stanton followed-up with his own 446-foot blast to finish up the Yankees’ scoring for the night. It was as majestic a shot as you’ll ever see in Kansas City, sailing over multiple batter’s eyes in dead center field.

Marrinaccio threw 2.1 innings, had three strikeouts, and gave up the lone run of the game, a homer off Freddy Fermin.

The Yankees have Cody Poteet as the probable starter for tomorrow. In his three outings, he has fit right in with his high-achieving rotation mates, posting a 1.72 ERA and even putting in a commendable outing against the Dodgers last Friday. Poteet’s counterpart will be reliever Dan Altavilla, since skipper Matt Quatraro’s plan is to use an opener ahead of bulk guy Daniel Lynch IV (5.63 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 8:10 ET tomorrow.

Box Score