Carlos Carrasco Helps Yankees Avoid Sweep

Not a great start to the week for the Yankees, but they did manage to salvage the finale against Arizona and avoid a sweep. So, it’s a 4-2 homestand to start the season, and no team in MLB history has ever hit more home runs through the first six games of a season. Lets get to it.

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After two quiet nights when the Diamondbacks’ excellent pitching staff struck out 30 Yankees in winning the first two games, Thursday night the big sticks came back out in a 9-7 victory fueled by another big performance from Aaron Judge.

He hit a three-run bomb in the first inning, later added an RBI single in the fourth and a double in the sixth, and he was backed by two-run homers from both Trent Grisham and Jazz Chisholm.

But while it was nice to see a 12-hit assault, the story of this game was the Yankee starting debut of 38-year-old righty Carlos Carrasco.

I’ll be honest, given how well Arizona played in the first two games, and how Carrasco looked in a mop-up assignment last Saturday against Milwaukee, I had basically zero belief that he was going to pitch the way he did. But baseball is gonna baseball and every night you can check any box score and you’ll see something that makes you look twice.

Carrasco - one of the worst pitchers in MLB the two last seasons with a cumulative ERA of 6.18 - went 5.1 innings and gave up three runs on five hits and two walks with five strikeouts. No, it wasn’t Gerrit Cole, but for the fifth starter in the rotation, who may not even have a spot in a couple weeks when Clarke Schmidt returns, it was a damn nice surprise.

“I just went out there to get outs and made my pitches,” Carrasco said. “You have to find a way and pretty much that’s what we did today.”

Carrasco spent 12 years in Cleveland and for a time was one of the most reliable starters in the AL. In fact, he led the AL with 18 wins in 2017 during a stretch when he had five straight seasons with an ERA less than 4.00 and finished his time there at 3.91.

But in 2019 he was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) in 2019 and missed a bunch of time before ultimately kicking that cancer’s ass. He resurfaced with the Mets in 2021 and after a tough season, he was terrific in 2022 when he won 15 games with a 3.97 ERA.

But 2023 with the Mets and 2024 back with the Guardians were a disaster, and the Yankees essentially threw him a life line when they signed him on Feb. 5 to see if he had anything left. He did, barely, and the only reason he made the team was the injuries to Cole, Schmidt and Luis Gil.

“More of what we saw in spring,” Aaron Boone said. “He was real poised, real in command and again, that’s a real good lineup. That’s a really good team.”

April 3: Yankees 9, Diamondbacks 7

➤ Merrill Kelly is another of Arizona’s fine starting pitchers, but he had nothing in this game. Ben Rice - the third different non-traditional leadoff hitter Boone used during the opening homestand - got things rolling in the first with a double, Cody Bellinger walked and Judge crushed his three-run bomb to right-center. And they weren’t done as Jasson Dominguez singled and later scored on a Grisham double to make it 4-0.

➤ Grisham’s homer in the third made it 6-1, but Arizona got those two runs back in the fourth with a Lourdes Gurriel RBI double the big hit. And then the Yankees answered right back with three in the bottom of the fourth on Judge’s RBI single and Chisholm’s two-run shot that made it 9-3.

➤ Things were going so well until the seventh when Ryan Yarborough - who was just signed at the start of the week when Devin Williams went on the paternity list - absolutely shit the bed. That inning started walk, walk, single, grand slam by Geraldo Perdomo and suddenly it was 9-7. Incredibly, Boone left him in and he did get two outs before Mark Leiter came on and whiffed Gurriel to end it.

➤ From there, Leiter got two outs in the eighth and after a single, Boone wasn’t risking it so he brought in Luke Weaver for a four-out save and Weaver - who hadn’t pitched since Opening Day - locked it down, mowing down all four men he faced.

➤ While Carrasco was spinning his own tale, rookie catcher JC Escarra made his first start and collected his first MLB hit with a double in the eighth inning. Very cool moment for him.

➤ Last year, Judge had six homers and 18 RBI when April ended. This year he has five homers and 15 RBI on April 3. He and Alex Rodriguez (2007) are the only players in Yankees history to hit at least five homers in the first six games of a season. And Judge is now just the fourth player with at least three doubles, five homers and 15 RBI in any six-game span, joining Lou Gehrig (1930), Joe DiMaggio (1937) and Moose Skowron (1956). “I feel like he’s still getting there, which is remarkable,” Boone said with a laugh.

➤ The Yankees now have 22 homers on the season, five more than any other team in history has had through the first six games.

What they said in Thursday’s clubhouse

• Chisholm on Judge’s incredible start: “He’s showing everyone why hes the MVP and one of the best baseball players to ever play. Think of last year - he hit 58 and had a bad first month. Imagine right now what he’s about to do. I’m just trying to keep up.”

• Judge on his start: “You’ve got to keep moving forward. I’ll look at it when I’m an old man coming to Old-Timers’ Day. I can look back and we can joke about it and laugh about it, but there’s a lot of work to be done.”

• Boone on the 4-2 homestand: “I felt for the most part, guys were leaving spring in a really good place, and it’s carried over here in the first week of the season from a run-production standpoint. We have a lot of really capable hitters, and it’s good to see most of them off on a really good note.”

• Escarra on his first hit: “I got a little too excited at second base; just enjoying the moment – close game, big hit,” Escarra said. “Before that at-bat, I’m like, ‘Man, I’m pressing. I’m trying to do too much. Let me just focus in and just have fun, not try to do too much.’ It’s funny how baseball works; when you don’t try to do too much, that’s when things come.”

April 2: Diamondbacks 4, Yankees 3

➤ Don’t let the score fool you. This was a no contest, one of those games we loathe with the Yankees when they do nothing on offense, then throw together one of their patented fake rallies at the very end that ultimately falls short and they do what they deserved to do all night, which was lose. Anthony Volpe’s three-run pop fly to right in the ninth went for a three-run homer - which was a homer in only one MLB park, Yankee Stadium with the short porch - made the game look close. It wasn’t.

➤Arizona starter Zac Gallen embarrassed the Yankee lineup as he pitched 6.2 shutout innings giving up three hits with no walks and 13 strikeouts as he dazzled every batter with his knuckle-curve. The Yankees were clueless, including Judge who whiffed in all three of his at bats against Gallen. After Gallen departed at 101 pitches, the Diamondbacks bullpen faltered in the ninth as Bellinger and Judge singled off Ryan Thompson so closer AJ Puk came into the game. He retired Chisholm, then gave up the Volpe homer before popping up Austin Wells and whiffing Dominguez who like Judge and Ben Rice had a brutal night as they all struck out three times. In all, the Yankees had 16 strikeouts, one night after they whiffed 14 times.

➤ On a cold, sometimes rainy night, Carlos Rodon started terribly by giving up four runs in the first two innings, and even though he got it together and pitched four scoreless to complete six innings, the Yankees were done after the second. He gave up a long two-run bomb in the first to Gurriel, and then in the second a sac fly to Perdomo and an RBI single to Ketel Marte that made it 4-0. Rodon gave up only three hits but walked four. Thereafter, Yoendrys Gomez finished the game with three scoreless, hitless innings, a very nice contribution from a bottom end reliever.

What they said in Wednesday’s clubhouse

• Boone on Rodon’s rough start: “(Early in the game) maybe it was just a little weather-related, a little cooler and stuff,. He was searching to find the strike zone a little bit there in those first couple of innings, but I thought stuff-wise, once he settled in, he was pretty good.”

• Boone on the silent bats in the first two games: “We were up against good pitching the last two nights. Gallen tonight, especially. He was just dialed in. He had both breaking balls going. The changeup was working. He was moving the fastball around. It has that ride - that cut on it. He had one heck of a night. He was really dealing. He made it tough on us.”

• Gallen on Yankees home run ability: “I think when you just look at this lineup on paper you know that that’s something they’re capable of, I think it motivates anybody but that motivated me to know I had to be on my A game today. But at the same time, when you face a team like that, they feast on when you’re getting behind the count.”

April 1: Diamondbacks 7, Yankees 5

➤ So much for the undefeated season, right? A bullpen meltdown turned a 4-2 eighth-inning lead into a 7-4 deficit as Tim Hill and Leiter were brutal, with Leiter serving up the game-losing grand slam hit by Eugenio Suarez.

➤ With Williams away from the team, Boone was saving Weaver for the ninth and that’s why Hill began the eighth. Of course, what many people probably overlooked is that by bringing Hill into the game, that gave Arizona manager Torey Lovullo the chance to use righty pinch-hitter Randal Grichuk. For those who aren’t aware, Grichuk is one of the all-time Yankee killers in history. This guy is otherwise a mediocrity, but when he plays the Yankees, holy shit. So naturally, he gets up there and he smashed Hill’s second pitch for a double and so began an awful inning. Hill gave up a single to No. 9 hitter Perdomo who was a major pain in the ass in all three games, and after he got an out, Boone went to Leiter who had thrown two excellent innings against Milwaukee. He was not excellent in this game as he walked Marte and Pavin Smith to load the bases, struck out Josh Naylor, but then came the grand slam. Ballgame over.

➤ This was an aggravating loss because after all the screaming about the torpedo bats, this game and certainly the second game were proof that it has nothing to do with the bat, and everything to do with the guy swinging the bat as the Yankees struck out 14 times, four by Chisholm. As someone said, it’s not the wand, it’s the magician. The Yankees scored five runs, but two of those were a gift when Arizona first baseman Naylor air-mailed an easy toss to pitcher Corbin Burnes on what should have been an inning-ending out in the fourth as two runs scored to give the Yankees a 4-2 lead. The other three runs came on solo homers by Volpe, Dominguez and Rice. Otherwise, the Yankees went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, and the torpedo bat guys - Volpe, Chisholm, Bellinger, Goldschmidt and Wells - went 1-for-18 with 10 strikeouts.

➤ The Yankees actually did a decent job against Burnes because they worked some really long at bats - Wells had a 13-pitch walk - which drove his pitch count up to 98 and he lasted only 4.1 innings. He gave up four runs (two earned) on four hits and three walks, so he wasn’t great. But then the Arizona bullpen pitched 4.2 innings and the only hit and run it allowed came on Rice’s meaningless two-out solo homer in the ninth. Yeah, these pitchers were way better than the bums the Brewers were throwing last weekend.

➤ Will Warren pitched well in his first start and would have gotten the win if not for the Leiter blown save. He retired the first eight men he faced, but then he walked Perdomo (not great) and then gave up his only hit, a two-run homer by Carroll in the third. His four walks got him into a couple sticky spots, but he escaped both. All in all, it was a serviceable start which is probably the best we can hope for at this point from him.

➤ After a terrible spring, we’re seeing what all the fuss was about with Fernando Cruz and his nasty splitter. He was incredible in this game - two perfect innings, four strikeouts, and the Diamondbacks swung at his pitches 10 times and missed eight. If this is who he is, then the perfect scenario for the Yankees is Cruz, Luke Weaver and Devin Williams to finish games.

What they said in Tuesday’s clubhouse

• Leiter on the Suarez slam: “He put a good swing on it and unfortunately, it got out. We had a chance to win that game. I’ve got to make better pitches. It’s a long season, so it’s all right, but it’s definitely disappointing. We had a chance to win that game, and I’ve got to make better pitches right there.”

• Warren on his encouraging outing: “I was just filling it up, putting them on their heels. Later in the game, I fell behind and (Carroll) hit the home run because of the two-out walk. But overall, I think making quick work was mainly from getting ahead and just trusting guys behind me.”

The Yankees hit the road for their first trip, three games in Pittsburgh this weekend followed by three in Detroit to start next week. The Pirates have started poorly in their annual descent to the bottom of MLB as they spent the first week of the season in Florida and lost five of seven games to the Marlins and Rays. Against Miami, they suffered three walk-off losses with closer David Bednar blowing two saves, and he has since been sent to the minors.

They avoided a sweep against the Rays at their new home, the Yankees’ spring training base at Steinbrenner Field, because ace Paul Skenes pitched seven dominant innings. That was double good news for the Yankees because the annoying Rays lost, and now they won’t have to face Skenes in this series. They also won’t see their second-best pitcher, Jared Jones, who is on the IL. Here’s a look at some of Pittsburgh’s best players.

➤ DH Bryan Reynolds: He’s off to a slow start with a .242 on-base but he can be a dangerous hitter.

➤ CF Oneil Cruz: A freaky athlete who can become a star if he ever gets it together. He’s sitting at .400 on-base with an MLB-leading six stolen bases and he has two of the Pirates’ meager total of four home runs so far.

➤ 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes: Another guy who could be a star if he ever hits because his glove is great. His on-base is .208 thanks to a 5-for-24 start. He’s the son of Charlie Hayes who famously caught the final out for the Yankees in the 1996 World Series.

➤ SS Isiah Kiner-Falefa: Old friend IKF leads the Pirates with a .462 on-base, 7-for-21 with four walks and four stolen bases.

The pitching matchups are scheduled to be:

• Friday, 4:12, YES: Max Fried (3.86 ERA) vs. righty Mitch Keller (1.50) who is the third member of the Pirates impressive (when healthy) top three starters, gets the home opener assignment at gorgeous PNC Park.

• Saturday, 4:05, YES: Marcus Stroman (5.79) vs. lefty Bailey Falter (3.00) who pitched six innings and gave up just two runs in his first start in Miami.

• Sunday, 1:35, YES: Will Warren (3.60) vs. lefty Andrew Heaney (1.80) who gave up one run in five innings in his start against the Rays.