Yankees’ bats erupt in 12-4 rout of Astros for seventh straight win
- Davis Cornell
- Apr 24
- 5 min read
The Yankees demolished the Astros 12-4 in the first game of this three-game set. To win their seventh consecutive game. Will Warren got the starting nod for the Yankees and faced off against Lance McCullers Jr.
“I mean, we just came out and know that we came to attack,” Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “Last couple of games we've been playing really well, but we know that we could attack a little bit more. And we know this guy is going to go out there and throw some strikes in the middle of the play, so we're ready to attack.”
In the top of the first inning, Trent Grisham and Aaron Judge each worked walks, and Cody Bellinger followed with a single to load the bases with nobody out. Ben Rice picked up an RBI fielder's choice, and the Astros didn't pick up any outs thanks to a wild throw from Jose Altuve. Jazz Chisholm Jr. extended the Yankees' lead to 3-0 thanks to a two-out two-run single.
Warren worked a 1-2-3 bottom of the first inning and recorded his first strikeout of the ballgame in the process.
Ryan McMahon led off the second inning with a solo shot into the Crawford Boxes, his second home run of the year, making it 4-0. Only a home run in 1-of-30 ballparks, thankfully for the Yakees, it was the one they were playing in.
Yainer Diaz cut the Yankees' lead to 4-1 via a two-out RBI base knock in the bottom half of the second. Judge just missed gunning down Altuve on a beautiful throw.
In the top of the fourth, Jazz crushed a solo shot to right, his second home run in as many days, to make it 5-1. In the bottom of the inning, Cam Smith cut the Yankees' lead to 5-2 with an RBI groundout.
“I feel great,” Jazz said. “I mean, I'm just up there doing my thing. My teammates trust in me, and they believe in me, you know, that kind of helps me out a lot.”
Ben Rice led off the top of the sixth with a double in the left-center gap. Giacarlo Stanton followed with an RBI single to end McCuller's day and extend the Yankees' lead to 6-2. Jazz welcomed the Astors' new pitcher to the game with a four-pitch walk. J.C. Escarra doubled off the wall in left, and Stanton came up slow rounding third and was forced to leave the game with right calf tightness.
Jose Caballero then dunked an RBI bloop single to right, and Grisham followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 8-2.
Rice led off the seventh inning with another lefty-on-lefty home run, his ninth of the year, to extend the Yankees' lead to 9-2.
Randal Grichuk, who took over for Stanton, then laced a double down the third base line. Jazz followed with an RBI base knock, his third hit of the ballgame.
With runners on the corners and nobody out, McMahon bounced into a 1-6-3 double play to bring across the Yankees' 11th run of the night. Caballero found the Crawford Boxes for a solo shot, his second home run of the year, to give the Yankees a dozen runs.
Fernando Cruz replaced Warren on the mound in the bottom of the seventh and served up a solo homer to Diaz, to cut the Yankees' lead to 12-3. Braden Shewmake crushed a solo bomb of his own to make it 12-4.
Final line for Warren: Six innings pitched, surrendering seven hits, two runs, walking one, and striking out six on 95 pitches. Warren threw the fastball 39% of the time, the sinker 28%, the sweeper 26%, the curveball 3%, and the changeup 3%. Warren topped out at 95.5 mph and averaged 93.7 on his fastball, while having seven swings and misses tonight.
“That's a good offense,” Warren said. “They made me work out there, but I think J.C. and I had a good plan, and we executed the plan, and we were able to get out when we needed them.”
“I thought he was good. I mean, that's a good offense over there,” Aaron Boone said of Warren. “So they were able to pressure him a little bit, made him work some longer at-bats. But again, stuff was really good. Had some swing and miss going. Yeah, I thought overall pretty sharp.”
Ryan Yarbrough took over for Cruz in the bottom of the eighth and worked around a leadoff single and a two-out free pass, putting together a scoreless frame. Yarbrough came back out for the bottom of the ninth and worked a 1-2-3 inning to put the finishing touches on the Yankees' seventh win in a row.
“I thought they were patient, really made McCullers work,” Aaron Boone said. “Were able to just string together a lot of really good threats all night and then able to break through there a couple of those times in a big way. So just a lot really good at bats, I thought, up and down the lineup, a lot of contributions. So good night.”
The Yankees will look to win the series tomorrow with Ryan Weathers on the mound, facing off against Mike Burrows. The first pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. ET on the YES Network.
My thoughts on the game: Solid start from Warren, he didn't have his best stuff early on, but settled in really nicely to put together a quality start. Cruz was shaky in his inning of work, getting bitten by the home run ball a couple of times. And Yarbrough did his job picking up the final six outs tonight. The offense was just awesome tonight, tallying 13 hits and 12 runs. Jazz is starting to break out of his slump with a 3-for-4 night with four RBIs, a walk, and a homer, his third multi-hit game of the week. Jazz did have one of the worst ABS challenges we have ever seen in the ninth on a pitch right down the middle. Rice had a couple of hits with a home run and a double with a pair of RBIs. McMahon went deep. The entire Yankees infield tonight left the yard. Caballero and Escarra each had multi-hit games. Everyone in the starting lineup tonight had a hit, aside from Grisham and Judge. Stanton did leave the game with an injury. I hope he is ok and it's not an IL situation, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if it was. Just a very fun game to watch all around. On to tomorrow as the Yankees will look to win the series.
“Just that some tightness in his calf,” Boone said of Stanton. “Hopefully, we got ahead of anything serious, but we'll just see where he's at tomorrow.”
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