The Yankees easily beat the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Monday
The Yankees had an offensive outburst against the Phillies winning 14–4 in the first game of their series at Citizens Bank Park. This was an impressive offense against the best team in MLB who has allowed the fourth fewest runs in MLB.
The Yankees are now on a three-game winning streak and have scored a combined 33 runs in those three games. The Yankees have scored at least seven runs in five of their last seven games. The Yankees won on Monday and the Orioles lost, which means the Yankees are just half a game behind Baltimore for first place in the AL East.
The Yankees scored at least seven runs only six times during their 10–22 stretch (from June 15 to July 24). Since then, the’ve scored at least seven runs runs in four consecutive games.
Luis Gil allowed three earned runs with five hits and three walks in 5.1 innings. He allowed two runs through the first five innings on a Trea Turner fielder’s choice RBI in the third inning and then a solo homer by Brandon Marsh to the second deck in right off of a 99 mph high fastball to make the score 3–2 Yankees in the 4th inning. That was a really good swing on a good pitch by Luis Gil. Gil got under the ball on that pitch Girardi said.
Gil had an impressive 5th inning where he retired side in order with two strikeouts. Gil has had much better break and depth on his slider in this start and his previous two starts than he had earlier in the season. He feels much more comfortable throwing his slider recently after getting advice from Luis Severino via text on how to improve his grip. His slider is the breaking ball that he is throwing most and his changeup is actually thrown faster than his slider.
His fastball was really good and got up to triple digits and his slider was really good as well. Gil was coasting coming into the 6th but then struggled. His last batter was a hard ground ball hit past Rice at first. If Rice fielded the ball it would have been a great play and it might have been double play but he didn’t so it was a RBI single to right by Marsh that made the score 7–3 Yankees.
In this game, Jazz Chisholm had two homers in his second game with the Yankees. Aaron Judge also hit two homers and Anthony Volpe hit the team’s fifth homer. In 10 games since the All Star break, Volpe has been hitting very well with a .333 average (14–42) with two doubles, two homers, seven RBI and three steals.
The Yankees had three solo homers in the first two innings. Judge had a 406 foot blast in the first inning, Chisholm had a 348 foot homer that just got over the wall in the second and then Ben Rice also hit a homer in this second inning, which went one foot further than Judge’s homer.
Soto has very good .309 average with one grand slam in career with bases loaded. He had a big two run double on a curve ball with two strikes with bases loaded in the 5th inning. That was his first curve he had seen in the game. Volpe was second run that scored on Soto’s double and he scored standing up.
Later in the fifth inning, Austin Wells tripled to deep center to score Verdugo and Soto. That was his first triple in his 90th MLB game. It is very rare for a catcher to hit a triple but he does have solid speed for a catcher. Wells easily got to third on his stand up 2-run triple that went off the top of the wall in right center. He crushed the ball and came close to hitting a 3-run homer.
Rice had his first multi hit game since July 6 when he had his 3-homer game. He went 2–3 with his solo homer. In his last seven games he had gone just 2–20 to lower his average from .218 to .196. He did have some hard hit balls in that span of games but it was a good sign that he finally had a multi-hit game after not having one on 17 games. He now has a .755 OPS, which is solid.
To make the score 9–3 in the seventh, Judge hit a 2-run homer for his second homer of the game, which was his 39th homer of the season and 99th RBI of the season in 106 games. When Bryce Harper won the MVP in 2021, he had 35 homers and 84 RBI in 141 games.
That homer was Judge’s 37th multi homer game of his career and he has the most multi homer games in MLB since 2017. Judge got MVP chants from the fans in Philly during his 8th inning strikeout. Judge is 8–16 with one double, four homers, 10 RBI and seven runs scored in his last four games.
Michael Tonkin, who has struggled recently, allowed a single, a walk and two wild pitches. That second wild pitch led to Bryson Stott scoring the Phillies’ fourth run. In his last four games, Tonkin has allowed six earned runs in 5.0 innings with six hits, two homers and four walks. In his previous 10 games, he only allowed four walks and in his previous 27 games with the Yankees he only allowed two homers.
Anthony Volpe hit a two-run homer in the 8th inning to continue his hot hitting. He pulled the homer, which is a sign of him hitting well. Later in the 8th, Soto had an RBI double for his third hit of the game. The one through three hitters in the lineup went 6–13 with six runs scored, six RBI and two homers (by Judge).
Chisholm had a homer off of catcher Garrett Stubbs in the 9th inning. The Phillies had a position player pitch since they were down 12–4 going into the ninth and they did want a relief pitcher to throw any more pitches. Chisholm used Judge’s bat since the ball was being thrown so slow and he said he had never before gotten a homer off of a position player. He said he would not use the bat anymore because it was heavy but wanted to try with the catcher pitching.
Stubbs has now thrown in two games this season and has a 31.50 ERA and a 3.50 WHIP in 2.0 innings. He has allowed seven runs in those two innings.
Chisholm made a really good play on a short hop at third in this game in his first game at third base in his career. He also made a nice catch on a hard line drive towards second base in the 7th inning. He had good range to prevent a double in 9th and knock the ball down to hold the hitter to a single. He picked up centerfield last season after previously being a second baseman and his athleticism and adaptability showed yesterday and it appears that he will be able to be a reliable option at third.
Aaron Boone said that when he plays the infield he will play at third base. In Chisholm’s first game with the Yankees on Sunday he played center field and then played third base on Monday. It is a plus that he is versatile and has speed, which is something the team was lacking outside of Volpe. In his two games with the Yankees, Chisholm is 3–9 with two homers, three RBI and a steal after going 4–19 in his last five games with the Marlins.
The negative from the game is that Gleyber Torres had an in between hop and made an error on ball hit to him in 8th inning. That was his 14th error this season, which is the most among second baseman. He had an error in the previous game also. He also has the most errors at second base (58) since 2018, which was his rookie season. That should have been an inning ending out but since it wasn’t Yoendrys Gomez (had to throw more pitches.
Wells his been really productive recently out of the clean up spot. He was 1–4 with two RBI on Monday and in his last seven games he is 11–25 with one double, one triple, two homers and seven RBI. He started being really productive even before moving into the cleanup spot since in his last 22 games going back to the end of June, he is 21–57 with two doubles, one triple, six homers, 16 RBI, 13 walks and has raised his OBP from .299 to .342 and his OPS from .609 to .764.
Since ending a 3-for-35 start to his season on April 24, Wells has a 141 wRC+ (41 percent better than the league-average hitter), which leads all MLB catchers. If he continues having success like he has been the rest of the season he will finish in the tops three or four in Rookie of the Year voting.
