NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge combined with Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger to go deep on the first three pitches from Milwaukee’s Nestor Cortes, then had two more homers and a career-high eight RBIs as the New York Yankees tied a team record with eight home runs in taking an 18-6 lead over the Brewers on Saturday.
Judge hit a solo homer, his ninth career grand slam, and and a two-run shot in his 40th multi-homer game and third with three homers.
He came up just short of becoming the 19th player to hit four homers in a game when his sixth-inning fly fell on the right-field warning track for a run-scoring double.
Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge homered starting the first on the unusually warm 78-degree afternoon. Major League Baseball said this was the first time a team homered on its first three pitches since tracking of pitch counts began in 1988.
Austin Wells homered later in the inning as New York hit four home runs in the first inning for the first time in its century-plus history. Anthony Volpe added a three-run drive in the second for a 7-3 lead against Cortes, who allowed a career-high five home runs.
Judge’s first homer went 468 feet and he added his ninth career slam in the fourth on a 396-foot drive to left-center off Connor Thomas, a 27-year-old left-hander making his major league debut. Jazz Chisholm Jr. followed with a home run, boosting the lead to 13-3.
Judge hit a 425-foot, two-run homer to center in the fourth against Thomas.
New York’s homers tied the team record set at the Philadelphia Athletics on June 28, 1939, and matched against the Chicago White Sox on July 31, 2007.
Batting leadoff for the first time in his 15-year major league career, Goldschmidt drove a fastball 413 feet into the Brewers bullpen in left field against Cortes, who was making his Milwaukee debut following a December trade from the Yankees.
Bellinger sent a fastball over the Yankees bullpen and into the right-field bleachers and Judge drove a cutter 468 feet into the left-field second deck.
After a mound visit by pitching coach Chris Hook, Chisholm took a called third strike, Volpe grounded out and Wells hit a fastball 372 feet into the left-field seats.
Milwaukee closed to 4-3 in the second against Max Fried, who lasted 4 2/3 innings in his Yankees debut, and Volpe hit a cutter 349 feet into the left-field seats.
Wells led off Thursday’s game with a home run off Freddy Peralta, becoming the first catcher to hit a leadoff homer on opener day. The Yankees joined the 2011 Texas Rangers as the only team to lead off with a home run in its first two games. Ian Kinsler went deep starting both those Rangers games.
Cortes, a 30-year-old left-hander who pitched for New York from 2018-24, had never before allowed more than three homers in a game. He is remembered by Yankees fans for allowing a first-pitch grand slam to Freddie Freeman in the 10th inning of last year’s World Series opener that lifted the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 6-3 win, starting them to the title.
Pitching with his hair dyed blond, Cortes gave up eight runs, six hits and five walks in two innings and left with a 36.00 ERA.
Thomas allowed his first five batters to reach and allowed eight runs, six hits and two walks in two innings.
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