Yankees 9, Blue Jays 8

By Mike Whiteman April 7, 2024 Born on this day in 1907 was Oral Hildebrand. The hard-throwing righty was a useful part of the 1939 Yankees, considered on of the greatest teams of all time. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/h/hildeor01.shtml

On this day in 1977, Reggie Jackson made his Yankee debut with two singles while batting fifth in the order in a 3-0 win over the Milwaukee Brewers. As we all know, Reggie went on to have a productive, albeit turbulent five years in Pinstripes. https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA197704070.shtml

Quick stats: The Yankees are 7-2, and in first place in the American League East. In a quirk of the MLB winning pitcher rule, Luke Weaver got the victory, despite allowing three runs in two innings. He leads the Majors in wins with three. Clay Holmes held on for the save and is the MLB leader with four. Big story: In a scene Yankee fans dreamed about after their team acquired Juan Soto, the Yanks jumped out to a quick 2-0 lead when he drew a walk and was driven in with an Aaron Judge home run. To cap off that first inning, Giancarlo Stanton also homered and the lead was extended to 3-0.

In the second, the Yanks added three more runs and drove Toronto starter Kevin Gausman out of the game. They looked like they did in Houston and Arizona, grinding out the runs with catcher's interference, a walk, two singles, a passed ball and a sacrifice fly. Yankee starter Clarke Schmidt was good enough, nibbling his way through four and a third innings, allowing two runs. Luke Weaver came on to get out of the fifth. Anthony Rizzo smacked his first home run of the year, a two-run shot, in the fifth to make it 8-2. Soto's second RBI single of the night in the sixth extended the lead to 9-2. After Weaver had spun a scoreless sixth, he tired in the seventh inning and things got interesting. Too interesting. Toronto tacked on three runs in the seventh, and scored three more in the ninth, bringing the go-ahead run to the plate. Manager Aaron Boone had to run through relievers Victor Gonzalez, Ian Hamilton, and Clay Holmes the last three innings, and Holmes finally nailed down the win. Yankees win, 9-8. Phew! Player of the Game: Lets give this to Stanton. The embattled Yankee DH had three hits, including his home run, and looked comfortable at the plate. He needed a game like this. I have a sneaky suspicion that a day game after a night game could end up being a seat on the bench for Stanton, either to rest him or move Judge to DH. Let's hope this doesn't happen, and he can build on last night's success. In a historical contest, Stanton's home run was the 404th of his career. He leads all active players and ranks 58th all time. Duke Snider and his 407 homers is the the next player he can catch on the list. Notable performances: Judge reached base four times on the evening...Third baseman Oswaldo Cabrera made a real nice play on a grounder along the third-base line in the second inning, throwing a strike across his body to first base while fading into foul territory. Better to forget: Every Yankee in the lineup scored or drove in a run except for Alex Verdugo. He's batting .161 thus far...Soto struggled a bit in the field with a couple of arguably catchable balls falling in for doubles. They said it: "It doesn't always go according to plan, but shaking hands sure solves a lot of things" - Aaron Boone on the Yanks' needing to hang on for dear life for the win. My take: It would have been nice to have the Yanks cruise to a win after getting off to a 9-2 lead, but give the Jays credit for not giving up. As Boone had to dip into the bullpen more than he likely wanted to, and with Luis Gil slated to start today with a likely short leash, I wouldn't be surprised to see a move to add a fresh arm in the next day or two. Much is said about the Yankees adding the Starr Insurance patch to their uniforms - and it really is a bad look in my opinion. At least those patches are consistent with Yankee colors. The Blue Jays green TD Bank patches really look out of place with the traditional blue uniforms. Money, money, money... Next up: The Yanks go for the series win today at 1:35. Luis Gil (0-0, 1.93) takes the mound against Bowden Francis (0-1, 11.81).