When DJ LeMahieu went down with a bone bruise in his right foot, a sizable majority of the fanbase (myself included) grumbled that the team had no better replacement at third than Oswaldo Cabrera. He appears dead set on proving his doubters wrong, the third-year utilityman following up his game-tying home run last night with a 4-for-5 effort while driving in three of the Yankees’ six runs. Carlos Rodón also started his redemption arc on an upward trajectory, battling through 4.1 innings of one-run ball while Juan Soto added another three hits as the Yankees take the second game of the season opening series in Houston, 7-1.
Soto got things started for the Yankees with a one-out single on a curveball he flipped to the opposite field, but the Yankees couldn’t capitalize. Gleyber Torres and Aaron Judge struck out to end the frame with the help of some generous called strikes from home-plate umpire Rob Drake.
There was a nervous moment in the bottom of the third as Aaron Boone and the trainer went to check on Soto in the outfield. Soto started his day at 2-for-2 with a pair of singles after jumping on a first pitch curveball from Javier in the third and appeared to be favoring his leg on the long grass in the bottom half of the inning. Aaron Boone later said that Soto twisted his ankle, though it was minor enough that the superstar felt comfortable staying in the game and he plans to play on Saturday.
Despite giving up a run in the first, Rodón looked geared up for his start out of the gate, firing multiple 98-mph fastballs by the Astros hitters. He made a pair of two-strike mistakes to Jose Altuve and Alex Bregman, the former a center-cut fastball sent to the wall in left for a double and the latter a hanging slider that just evaded Alex Verdugo’s diving attempt, driving Altuve in.
Some of the adrenaline wore off by the second, with Rodón’s heater settling in at 95-96. He navigated around runners on the corners after walks of Chas McCormick and Jake Meyers. He did an even more impressive job of escaping runners on second and third with one out in the third after a Kyle Tucker single and Bregman walk, striking out José Abreu on an elevated 96 mph heater and McCormick on a nasty back-foot slider.
Oswaldo Cabrera repaid the team’s faith in him as Opening Day third baseman with the game-tying home run to go along with a single last night. His heroics earned him another start today and he was one of the few Yankees hitters to have any success against Javier, his single in the third and double in the fifth accounting for half the team’s hits off the Houston starter.
Rodón needed his grittiest effort to get through the fourth after yielding a pair of leadoff singles to Yainer Diaz and Jeremy Peña. He got Meyers and Altuve to fly out before striking out Alvarez on a 93 mph cutter above the zone — a fired-up Rodón stomping off the mound. He had to battle for pretty much his entire outing, but unlike similar starts last season, he never let an inning spiral as traffic mounted on the basepaths, ultimately stranding seven runners. The biggest area that stood out to me as needing improvement was execution in two-strike counts, with four of the five hits he surrendered coming one strike away from a punchout.
:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25362672/Screen_Shot_2024_03_29_at_7.06.06_PM.png "Yankees 7, Astros 1: The Oswaldossance is on (1)")
He ended his night holding Houston to a run on five hits and three walks, with four strikeouts on 87 pitches across 4.1 innings. After Rodón converted the first out of the fifth, Nick Burdi made his Yankees debut, becoming the second pitcher after Shawn Hill to return from two Tommy John surgeries and thoracic outlet syndrome surgery to pitch on a major league mound. Burdi walked Bregman before retiring the next two batters.
It was puzzling to see the Yankees take such an aggressive approach against Javier after their patience last night rewarded them with nine walks. They really had no answer against the Houston starter, who compiled six scoreless innings with four hits and a walk against eight strikeouts, needing just 90 pitches to do so. It wasn’t the first time they ran into the Javier buzzsaw, as he notably struck out 13 in six no-hit innings to set the stage for Houston’s combined no-hitter at Yankee Stadium in 2022.
Thankfully, the Bombers rediscovered their discipline against reliever Tayler Scott, who walked Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells with one out to set up the game-tying opposite-field single from Cabrera, his third hit on the night.
Scott then hit Torres on the hand with a wayward fastball, the Yankees second baseman hunched over home plate receiving treatment for a nerve-wracking few minutes. Replays appeared to show the pitch hitting him in the meaty part of the base of the thumb. He was able to stay in the game temporarily before being replaced by Jahmai Jones in the bottom-half. (X-rays on Torres’ hand were later negative.)
Torres’ plunking brought Soto to the plate, and he spat on every pitch from Rafael Montero to draw the go-ahead bases loaded walk. Judge stepped up with the bases still juiced, but the big man bounced into his second inning-ending double play of the series.
Victor González was brought on in the seventh to neutralize the pair of lefties atop the Houston order in Alvarez and Tucker, but he allowed both to reach. However, former Dodger teammate and fellow lefty Caleb Ferguson mopped up by getting Abreu to fly out, helped by a sparkling sliding catch from Soto on a Bregman dying duck to save at least a run.
New York broke it open in the eighth, Anthony Rizzo leading off with a single followed by a one-out Verdugo walk. Volpe tapped a soft grounder to Peña for what looked like a tailor-made double play ball, but the young shortstop nonchalantly flipped to Altuve and the ball trickled into center, allowing Rizzo to score the Yankees’ third run. Wells followed with a surprise bunt that reliever Parker Mushinski sailed into right field, allowing Verdugo to score.
Cabrera then stepped to the plate and delivered the killer blow, a line-drive single up the middle to plate Volpe and Wells and make it 6-1 Yankees.
Not wanting to get left out on the action, Giancarlo Stanton blasted his first home run of the year, a solo shot to left-center in the ninth for the 403rd of his long career. Rookie Clayton Beeter made his MLB debut to finish it off, turning away the Astros on three pitches, with a big assist from an Alvarez brain fart. Final score: 7-1, Yanks.
The Yankees look to guarantee at least a series victory tomorrow with Marcus Stroman set to make his Yankees debut against Hunter Brown. First pitch is scheduled for 4:15 pm ET with FOX carrying the broadcast.
