Men Against Boys as Yankees Crush Royals Again

The Yankees have looked absolutely dominant through the first three games of their series against a pretty good Royals team with the latest victory an 11-5 flogging Wednesday night thanks to some more massive one-swing damage. And in Pinstripe Past, we wish Wade Boggs a happy 66th birthday. There are moments in baseball that sometimes seem surreal, and Boggs choosing to sign with the Yankees in 1993 after having been a decade-long star for the Red Sox certainly qualified. Lets get to it.

June 12: Yankees 11, Royals 5

All we can do right now is just sit back and enjoy the ride because the Yankees are playing fantastic baseball. It’s sure to get bumpy here at some point because it always does in a 162-game season, but as we approach the middle of June, this team is mowing down the competition like a thresher in a wheat field.

They scored six runs in the first inning Wednesday night and the game was essentially over before many people even realized it was on Amazon Prime and were still trying to find it. They have scored 10 first-inning runs in the first three games in Kansas City and with 57 for the season, they lead all of MLB.

“I think (the first-inning runs are) huge for anybody, any team. Especially being the visitors, you want to punch first,” said Jose Trevino, who punched the hardest when he hit a three-run homer that made it 6-0. DJ LeMahieu, the ninth batter of the inning, then missed the extra point, so to speak, to end the uprising, but that didn’t matter at all as the Yankees kept pouring it on later.

“A lot of good things obviously happened in that inning, starting with Volpe,” Aaron Boone said. “Just everyone putting together really good at-bats … Great to see them coming out like that. Anytime you score runs, however when you do it early, I think it does give a little shot of energy and help be one of the factors that helps set the tone for a game.”

The Royals used an opener to start the game, a reliever named Dan Altavilla, and this poor bastard didn’t have a chance. Altavilla made his MLB debut in 2016 with the Mariners and he had 119 games of experience with Seattle and the Padres, but until he pitched Monday night he hadn’t appeared in an MLB game since 2021.

Anthony Volpe led off with a single and stole second, Juan Soto walked, Aaron Judge singled to load the bases, and after Giancarlo Stanton whiffed, Alex Verdugo came through with a two-run single. When Gleyber Torres walked, that was it for poor Altvavilla who wobbled back to the dugout dazed and confused.

Lefty Daniel Lynch IV came on and got Anthony Rizzo on a sacrifice fly and then Trevino lined his homer to left to make it 6-0. Good night everyone, see you Thursday.

Here are my observations:

➤ This was the Yankees’ eighth straight victory on the road, their longest streak since 2009 which just so happened to be the last time they won the World Series. Coincidentally, their 27-11 road record is a huge reason why, at 49-21, they now have the best overall record in MLB.

➤ Cody Poteet made his fourth start of the year including his third in Clarke Schmidt’s place and once again, in a year where there have many surprises, Poteet was terrific. He blanked KC through five innings, then ran into trouble in the sixth and was ultimately charged with two runs in his 5.1 innings as he allowed four hits and three walks.

➤ Ian Hamilton relieved Poteet and promptly walked Salvador Perez to load the bases and gave up a sacrifice fly before striking out Nick Loftin to end the inning. Hamilton then gave up three straight two-out singles in the seventh for another run, and Tommy Kahnle came in and gave up a single and a walk, with his fourth ball to Perez going to the backstop for a wild pitch that allowed a run to score. Just another frustrating night for two guys who are supposed to be high-leverage relievers. I keep saying this, but despite all the good that is happening right now, the bullpen remains a concern that must be addressed in some way at the trade deadline at the end of next month.

➤ Hamilton and Kahnle sucking didn’t really matter because Stanton had hit a 449-foot two-run homer in the fifth that made it 8-0, and Torres hit a three-run shot in the seventh that upped the count to 11-2, both of those off Lynch IV. Stanton and Torres both drive us nuts, there’s no denying that, but Stanton now has 17 homers and a .779 OPS, while Torres has quietly put together a 19-game on-base streak during which time he has an .805 OPS.

➤ Somewhat overlooked because of all the great pitching and hitting the Yankees have done, their defense has been pretty good and they have made several beautiful plays in this series. “The overall quality of (the defense) has been excellent, but also I just feel like there’s been a number of games where, you know, key moments, there’s been a key play required, and it’s happened a lot,” Boone said. “Whether it’s a great play in the outfield, in the infield, big spot in the game, game on the line, they’ve done a great job with that and it’s been a factor in us winning a lot of games.”

➤ The Yankees have won 15 straight against AL Central teams this season, are 17-1 overall, and going back to 2021 their record is 82-33.

➤ Big news for those of us in Rochester, Gerrit Cole is going to make his third rehab start Friday night at Innovative Field against the Red Wings and I’ll be there covering it. Click on this link to the story I did for the D&C if you care to read it: https://shorturl.at/hXDNq

Wade Boggs Thrived When He Changed Sides

The list of players who have played on both sides of the perpetually frosty Yankees-Red Sox rivalry is longer than you might think, nearly 250, topped of course by Babe Ruth.

But as you scan down the names, you see many were either nondescript guys like Franchy Cordero and Deron Johnson, or had the bulk of their playing time with one team and were just passing through with the other such as longtime Yankee Elston Howard or longtime Red Sock Kevin Youkilis.

There is a finite segment who were key contributors for both teams and experienced the full breadth of the rivalry, and Wade Boggs is right near the top of the list.

The only position players who played at least 500 games for both franchises are Ruth, Jacoby Elsbury, Johnny Damon and Boggs, and the only pitchers who appeared in at least 150 games for both are Roger Clemens, Sparky Lyle, Herb Pennock, Red Ruffing, Carl Mays, Tom Gordon, and Sad Sam Jones. Of those 11, the only Hall of Famers are Ruth, Boggs, Pennock, and Ruffing (and Clemens should be in, but, well, you know the story).

As Yankee fans, Boggs was not someone we liked very much because he was a constant thorn in New York’s side. In his career, which also included a brief two-year stint at the end with his hometown Tampa Bay Rays, Boggs hit .319 against the Yankees with a .406 on-base percentage and an .807 OPS which was impressive because he was not a home run hitter (he hit only two against the Yankees in 132 games).

He played the first 11 of his 19 big-league seasons in Beantown and earned eight All-Star berths while winning five AL batting titles (in four of those he led all of MLB), and six on-base titles (all six in which he also led MLB). So yeah, not a guy Yankee fans loved, but he also played in a slightly less volatile time in the rivalry - the bitterness of the 1970s had waned, and we hadn’t reached the cauldron of the late 1990s and early 2000s when it all re-ignited.

The loathing of Boggs, I would say, was far less compared to Carlton Fisk, Jim Rice and Bill Lee before Boggs made it to Boston in 1982, and far less than it was for Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz and Jason Varitek after he was not only out of Boston but out of baseball.

Boggs was a magician with a bat in his hands. He finished with 3,010 hits, one of only 33 men in the history of the game who have reached that plateau, and his career .328 average ranks 37th all-time now that Negro league statistics have been added.

His father, Win, bought him Ted Williams’ book “The Science of Hitting” when he was in high school and the biggest thing Boggs derived from those pages was that, “There are certain good pitches to hit, and I started looking for those.” And when they came, he whacked them all over the field.

That approach also led to many walks because he trained his eyes so well, but at a time when on-base percentage simply wasn’t as beloved as it is today, he was told by a Red Sox minor league hitting instructor that he would never get to Boston hitting singles and doubles and walking. And sure enough, when the 1976 seventh-round draft pick reported to Elmira of the New York-Penn League that summer, little did he know it was the beginning of a frustrating seven-year journey to the Hub.

Boggs hit .318 across 662 minor-league games, but he also managed only nine home runs and that clearly wasn’t rattling anyone’s cage. Boggs would often say his swing was built for Fenway Park, and he crowed, “All I do is hit .300, yet I’ve never read or heard once that I’m a prospect.”

One time, Red Sox manager Don Zimmer was asked whether Boggs was indeed a prospect. Zim, who would join forces with Boggs in New York when he became Joe Torre’s bench coach in 1996, replied about Boggs, “Who?”

He finally broke through in 1982 when former Yankees player and manager Ralph Houk was managing the Red Sox. He played sporadically in the first three months, sharing third base with Carney Lansford, but before long Houk realized he had to find playing time for Boggs because of his bat, so he used him at third, first and DH.

In 104 games he batted .349, the highest mark ever for a rookie who played at least 100 games, and he finished third in the AL rookie of the year voting behind Cal Ripken and Kent Hrbek, mainly because those guys each topped 20 homers and 90 RBI. Ripken hit 85 points below Boggs, and his on-base was 89 points lower, but he also played 56 more games.

Lansford was gone in 1983 and Boggs spent the next 10 years playing third base and ripping line drives, but during his time, the Red Sox made the postseason only three times, won their lone pennant in 1986, and famously did not win that World Series which is why Boggs’ achievements were often overlooked.

In the late 1980s, his life was turned upside down when he was outed for having an affair with a woman named Margo Adams that had been going on for four years. Adams sued Boggs for $12 million, though it was later thrown out of court, but she exacted her pound of flesh in a scathing interview with Penthouse magazine where she shared intimate details of their sex life, and also some of Boggs’ private thoughts about some of the Boston teammates he did not care for, prominently Clemens.

Boggs actually agreed to an interview with Barbara Walters on the TV magazine show 20/20, primarily to apologize to his teammates but also to shed light on Adams’ character and her repeated blackmail attempts to disclose the affair when Boggs wanted to break it off.

Through it all, Boggs continued to rake, but a sore back in 1992 resulted in the worst season of his career as he batted just .259, astonishing in that the lowest mark he’d ever had was .302 in 1990, the next lowest .325 in 1984. It was the final year of his contract and the Red Sox decided they weren’t interested in bringing him back, so when Boggs made the decision to switch allegiances in the rivalry and sign as a free agent with the Yankees prior to 1993, Red Sox fans probably didn’t think all that much about it. He was heading into his age 35 season and they figured he was washed up.

Nope. His first three seasons in pinstripes he was an All-Star each year as he hit .302, .342 and .324 and he also won his only two Gold Gloves at third base in 1994 and 1995. And then came 1996, the night of Oct. 26, and there was Boggs - one of the greatest Red Sox of all time - sitting atop a New York City police horse taking a lap around ebullient Yankee Stadium as a World Series champion as they defeated the Braves in six games.

That had to be such a dagger in the collective heart of the Boston fan base that was, at that point, nearly 80 years removed from its last world championship. “I rode the horse because I just wanted to thank the fans,” Boggs said that night, meaning Yankees fans.

This result was in stark contrast to the devastation of 10 years earlier, across town in Queens, when Boggs and the Red Sox were one out away from ending their drought against the Mets, only to have Bill Buckner make his error to force a seventh game which the Mets also rallied to win.

As part of the Yankees’ first championship team since 1978 - which for the Yankees felt like it was just as long as the Red Sox nearly eight-decade abyss - the 38-year-old Boggs hit .311 and made the last of his 12 All-Star teams. While he struggled in the postseason and wound up sharing third base with Charlie Hayes, he did draw an epic walk - he called it “the greatest walk of my life” - in the 10th inning of Game 4 in Atlanta that pushed across the eventual winning run on a night when the Yankees turned the Series by rallying from down 6-0 to win 8-6.

In the Game 6 clincher, Boggs started and went 0-for-3, then was replaced by Hayes in the top of the seventh and it was Hayes who made the catch of Mark Lemke’s foul pop fly wide of third that secured New York’s 3-2 victory.

“I was on the good side this time,” Boggs said as champagne mingled with emotion, recalling the heartbreak of 1986. “This is the highlight, no doubt. Now I can honestly say I’m a world champion. It’s destiny. Too many things went our way, the way they didn’t go our way in 1986.”

⚾ July 10, 2001: I don’t care about All-Star games, in any sport. Never have, never will. But the 2001 game at Seattle’s Safeco Field was semi-memorable because Derek Jeter became the first Yankee in 42 years to hit a home run in the midsummer classic. He led off the sixth inning with a solo shot off a future Yankee teammate, Jon Lieber.

This coming one year after Jeter was named MVP of the July 11, 2000 game in Atlanta when he went 3-for-3 with two RBI. The previous Yankee to go deep in an All-Star Game was Yogi Berra in 1959 off the Dodgers’ Don Drysdale at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Since Jeter’s homer, Jason Giambi hit one in 2003 and Aaron Judge did it in the 2018 game.

⚾ July 12, 1989: Ron Guidry, one of the greatest lefties in team history, was forced to announce his retirement due to continuing arm and shoulder problems. Guidry was done as a Yankee after 1988, but he tried to come back in 1989 with the Triple-A team in Columbus. However, after going 1-5 with a 4.18 ERA in seven starts, he knew he was finished.

During his 14-year career, all with the Yankees, Gator went 170-91 with a 3.29 ERA and pitched for two World Series-winning teams. Twice he lead the AL in wins and ERA, once in complete games, twice in WHIP, and he won the 1978 AL Cy Young. His 18 strikeouts against the Angels on June 17, 1978 remains the Yankee record.