Juan Soto homers again as red-hot Yankees shut out hapless Marlins
A solar eclipse couldn’t slow down the Yankees and the hapless Marlins had no chance.
Having Miami come to The Bronx with their 1-9 record to face the Yankees seemed like a mismatch going into Monday’s game.
It was even more of one once they started playing.
Not only did Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto power the offense with a pair of three-run homers in the fourth, but Nestor Cortes also dominated on the mound.
The lefty allowed only one base runner through six innings — a one-out single to right in the fourth by Bryan De La Cruz.
He ended up allowing just two singles in eight scoreless innings in the best start of the year by a Yankee.
The combination gave the Yankees their third straight win, as they matched their best start through 11 games in franchise history (9-2).
Aaron Boone believes it’s a sign the team is determined to not suffer a repeat of last year’s disappointment.
“I think there’s an element of that,” Boone said. “I think it sharpened everyone’s focus into the winter and certainly spring training and the seriousness with how we got ready. We’re doing all we can to make sure to not let last year happen [again].”
Monday’s win featured a little bit of everything.
After the Yankees were blanked for the second time this year on Friday, they responded with a season-high nine runs Saturday and eight runs Sunday.
They erupted for six runs in the fourth inning to break open Monday’s scoreless game, with the big blows coming from Volpe and Soto.
“I think it’s contagious,” Volpe said of the fourth-inning homers.
Giancarlo Stanton led off the inning with a single and got to third on Anthony Rizzo’s base hit to right.
With runners on the corners and no one out, Volpe, who also made a pair of stellar defensive plays at shortstop, went down and got a 1-2 slider from Jesus Luzardo and drilled it into the left-field seats for his second homer of the season.
Alex Verdugo followed with a double down the left-field line and Jose Trevino drew a four-pitch walk before Jon Berti laid down a sacrifice bunt for the first out of the inning.
A Gleyber Torres fly out to right was too shallow to score Verdugo from third, but Soto took care of it by hitting a three-run home run to right to make it 6-0.
And Cortes cruised along.
He retired the first 10 batters he faced before De La Cruz’s single and then retired another eight straight following the base hit before De La Cruz led off the seventh with a flare to center.
The lefty had allowed three runs in the first inning in both of his previous starts this season, but had no early trouble — or late — against Miami.
He struck out six and didn’t walk a batter in his 102-pitch outing.
Josh Maciejewski, called up from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, made his MLB debut in the ninth and finished the game with a scoreless inning.
It came in a game that was initially scheduled to begin at 2:05 p.m. but was pushed back to 6:05 p.m. by the Yankees and MLB due to the eclipse.
They’ve won their first three series of the young season and close out the homestand with two more versus Miami.
Boone was quick to point out that it’s still very early in the season, but the signs are promising — much as they were two years ago.
“We didn’t like how we finished last year and then we picked up Soto,” Cortes said of the team’s motivation. “We got off to a hot start [in 2022]. This team is capable of sustaining this, especially when we get everybody back.”
