- The New York Yankees swept the Milwaukee Brewers in their opening series, hitting a record-setting 15 home runs in the process.
- The Yankees’ new ‘torpedo’ bats have drawn attention, but MLB has deemed them legal.
- Despite the offensive outburst, the Yankees’ defense struggled, committing five errors in their second game.
NEW YORK — New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone knows a season is not a sprint but a marathon, with ups and downs typical of a six-month slog through 162 games.
As with every season, whether realistic or not, expectations are high in the Bronx, and anything less than hoisting the Commissioner’s Trophy would be an utter disappointment.
‘It’s just three games, you take wins when you can get them,’ Boone said after the Yankees’ 12-3 win completed a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. ‘It’s always a good thing. It’s a beautiful thing going into an off-day.’
While most teams try to establish an identity depending on the availability of their roster, no one knows what this version of the 2025 Yankees will look like, including Boone.
Take the opening weekend series against the Brewers, where the long ball came early and often and might be a sign of things to come.
On opening day, the Yankees used strong pitching and timely hitting to eke out a 4-2 victory, getting two homers to help in their effort. Then Saturday, the Bronx Bombers turned Yankee Stadium into their own Home Run Derby, slugging a team-record nine round-trippers, including three from reigning American League MVP Aaron Judge.
Five of those homers came against Nestor Cortes, the former Yankees pitcher who gave up a walk-off blast to Freddie Freeman in Game 1 of last year’s World Series. The same fans that lamented that longball in in October were cheering with delight seeing Cortes’ fastball and cutter getting tattooed to the tune of eight runs while facing only 17 batters. The Yankees offense left the yard on the first three pitches they saw and finished the day with 20 runs on 16 hits.
In the series finale Sunday, the Yankees wasted no time getting on the scoreboard when Judge blasted a two-run shot deep into the seats in the first inning on an 89-mph fastball from Brewers starter Aaron Civale. New York added three more homers, including two from second baseman Jazz Chisholm, in a victory for a series sweep. The Yankees hit 15 homers, tying the major-league record for most team home runs in the first three games of the season.
‘They have gone out and executed the game plan,’ Boone said. ‘You are not always going to have games like this.’
While the offense got most of the headlines, the defense that failed the Yankees so miserably in the five-game World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers returned this weekend. New York committed five errors Saturday, leading to four unearned runs off Max Fried, one of the team’s prized free agent signings. Fried, who inked an eight-year, $218 million deal in the offseason, got the hook from Boone after 4⅔ innings, leaving with a 10-run lead.
‘Obviously, we didn’t catch the ball great,’ Boone said. ‘I mean, that’s an understatement.’
How Boone, now in his eighth season as the Yankees skipper, will play musical chairs with his beat-up lineup, including Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, ace Gerrit Cole, and eight other teammates currently on the injured list, might be the biggest what-if heading into this campaign. The multitude of injuries to the pitching staff are well documented, but Boone doesn’t seem too concerned – even though Carlos Rodon was the only starter during the opening series to go more than five innings.
Yankees ‘torpedo’ bats
The Yankees were spraying the ball all over the yard Saturday with their unique torpedo bats, which became baseball’s biggest weekend story line. Major League Baseball doesn’t have an issue with it, saying the bats are perfectly legal.
Brewers closer Trevor Megill said the game felt like slow pitch softball, and claimed it was a genius idea and that MLB will ‘let it slide’ on the use of the bats because the Yankees are the ones using them.
‘I’m usually a maple guy, but birch for me allows me to get the bigger barrel because I wasn’t grandfathered in,’ Yankees outfielder Cody Bellinger said. ‘So, it’s all within regulation. They made sure that before the season even started, knowing that I imagine at some point the way these bats look that it’s probably going to get out at some point.’
One player who isn’t going to change his bat is Judge, who hit .322 with 58 home runs and drove in 144 runs last season.
‘What I did the past couple of seasons speaks for itself,’ said Judge, who has four home runs and 11 RBIs in the first three games. ‘Why try to change something if you have something that’s working?’
‘We’re trying to win on the margins,’ Boone added. ‘When I played, I probably used six, seven, eight different model bats throughout my career. There are just more people pouring into trying to optimize guys as best we can. We are trying to be better in every possible way.’