Your bag is empty.
Instant classics don’t usually happen in April, but the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels clearly do not care. In a battle of AL clubs on a day when the standings hardly matter, the Yankees and Angels traded haymakers right to the end, making for a stunning finish and a thrilling contest.
Yankees win instant classic over Angels
The New York Yankees got hot right out of the gate. Aaron Judge homered for the second straight at-bat in the first inning to give them a 2-0 lead. Jose Caballero followed his lead in the second inning to double it. In the third, they got two on with one out and appeared poised to run away with it.
They didn’t add on, though, and the Angels, thanks to an error and a plethora of walks, would tie it up at four. Once the Angels went to the bullpen, Aaron Boone began pinch-hitting his lefties he’d rested against Yusei Kikuchi, including Trent Grisham, who immediately broke the tie with a three-run home run.
Mike Trout, though, is still Mike Trout, and he reminded the Yanks of that. He would tie the game with a monster three-run blast. In the next half-inning, Judge went deep for the second time to immediately break the tie. The Angels would claw one back and tie it, though.
When Trout went deep for the second time in the top of the eighth to put the Angels up 10-8, it felt like the final blow. Instead, Grisham homered again in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game up. Coming off the bench to homer twice is an incredibly rare feat.
Anticlimactic ending
All of that surely set up for an outrageous finish, right? After Grisham’s home run, the Yankees still had no outs and all the momentum. When Jose Caballero doubled, it seemed like they were moments from victory. He stole third while Austin Wells worked a walk, giving the Yankees first and third with no outs.
Ryan McMahon, who came in on defense for Paul Goldschmidt, was up with Aaron Judge looming. If he didn’t end it, Judge was sure to come through and continue his epic performance and walk it off for the struggling Yankees, who’d lost five in a row.
McMahon worked a walk, seemingly setting up a bases-loaded no outs situation for Judge to play the hero. However, ball four was a wild pitch from Jordan Romano, and Caballero scampered home to end it then and there.
It was a rather anticlimactic ending. The Yanks had scored 10 runs exclusively through home runs, but the final blow was a wild pitch on a walk with Judge, who had two home runs, set to take the winning swings next.
Mike Trout, Aaron Judge comment
Mike Trout has three MVPs. Aaron Judge has three MVPs, including the last two in the AL. For the first time in seven decades, two three-time MVPs enjoyed multi-homer days in the same game, making this a historic game as well as a classic.
“It was great. That’s baseball for you,” Trout said. “It’s what fans want, and to be able to see something like that, pretty cool.” Grisham having two home runs off the bench, meaning there were three players with two-homer games, only adds to the insanity this game presented.
“I was going to talk some smack to (Trout) after the one he hit all the way to the warning track,” Judge said, “but I didn’t get a chance to, and then he answers right back with two big homers for him. You put that guy in a clutch situation, a big moment, and he’s going to show up every single time, so it’s fun going back and forth with a guy like that, especially in New York and the Bronx.”
MLB’s top four active home run leaders all played. Judge passed Paul Goldschmidt with his blasts, and Giancarlo Stanton, who leads players with 454, just missed a home run after banging a double off the wall. Trout has 408 career home runs.
Related Posts
