About Last Night: NYY 11, KCR 5

By Ethan Semendinger

June 13th, 2024

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The Yankees offense continues to put up lots of runs and the pitching continues to prevent lots of runs. That's all we ask for.

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Quick Stats -

• Winning Pitcher: Cody Poteet (3-0, 2.14 ERA)

• Losing Pitcher: Dan Altavilla (0-1, 33.75 ERA)

• Save: N/A

• Home Runs (New York): Jose Trevino (6), Giancarlo Stanton (17), Gleyber Torres (6)

• Home Runs (Kansas City): None

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Big Story - With two wins already in hand in the four-game series against the Royals, the New York Yankees had shown they can win in many different scenarios.

The win in Game 1 came with a very interesting line-up (that featured the likes of Trent Grisham and Jahmai Jones batting 6th and 7th), but the Yankees were able to post 4 runs and hold the Royals to just 2 runs, thanks to Carlos Rodon and Michael Tonkin.

In Game 2, the Yankees flashed their offensive prowess with 3 home runs (Wells, Judge, Stanton) accounting for 6 of their total 10 runs, as Marcus Stroman, Ron Marinaccio, and Victor Gonzalez held the Royals to just 1 run.

Last night, the Yankees continued these ways.

This was the line-up for the 3rd game of the series against the Kansas City Royals:

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Player(s) of the Game -

• Cody Poteet: Win, 5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R (2 ER), 3 BB's, 2 K's

• Jose Trevino: 2-4, Run, Home Run, 3 RBI's, 1 K

Notable Performances -

• Luke Weaver: 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K's

• Caleb Ferguson: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K

• Giancarlo Stanton: 2-5, Run, Home Run, 2 RBI's, 2 K's

• Gleyber Torres: 1-4, 2 Runs, Home Run, 3 RBI's, 1 BB, 1 K

• Anthony Volpe: 2-5, Run

• Juan Soto: 1-2, 3 Runs, 2 BB's, HBP

• Alex Verdugo: 1-4, 2 Runs, 2 RBI's, 1 BB, 1 K

Better to Forget -

• DJ LeMahieu: 0-4

• Ian Hamilton: 1.1 IP, 3 H, 3 R (3 ER), 1 BB, 2 K's

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The Game - The Yankees immediately started the game with a continuation of Tuesday night's scoring mayhem as Anthony Volpe (single), Juan Soto (walk), and Aaron Judge (single) got the bases loaded quickly. After Giancarlo Stanton struck out, Alex Verdugo brought the games first two runs home with a single of his own, and Gleyber Torres walked the bases back to loaded. (This was the end of the day for Royals starter Dan Altavilla.) Anthony Rizzo would give the Royals the 2nd out of the inning with a sacrifice fly to plate Aaron Judge (3-0, Yankees). And then Jose Trevino would put the game away with a 3-run blast to left field, giving the Yankees a 6-0 lead.

The bats would then go quiet for a few innings, before Giancarlo Stanton delivered a 2-run home run (scoring Juan Soto, who got on via walk) to give the Yankees an 8-0 lead.

Two innings later, the Yankees would add a few more insurance runs after Juan Soto got on via a hit-by-pitch, Giancarlo Stanton singled, and Gleyber Torres hit a 3-run home run to give the Yankees 11 runs on the night.

As a whole, the Yankees offense scored 11 runs on 11 hits, 4 walks, and 1 hit-by-pitch. You can't ask for more. They were great.

Meanwhile, the pitching for the Yankees was also great...to a point.

Cody Poteet has been a great starting pitcher since Clarke Schmidt went down, giving the Yankees a 2.14 ERA over 4 starts and 21 innings of work (this includes last night). Though, this game did move that ERA up considerably.

Poteet held the Royals without a run through his first 5 innings of work (he did allow runners on the corners in the 3rd, but escaped without harm), though he did get beat by Bobby Witt Jr. in the 6th inning to allow 1 run. After a follow-up walk to Vinnie Pasquantino, Aaron Boone pulled Poteet for Ian Hamilton.

Ian Hamitlon provided a bases-loading walk to Salvador Perez before getting Nelson Velazquez to hit a sacrifice fly to score the Royals 2nd run of the game before ending the inning. This finished Poteet's pitching line at: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 2 R (2 ER), 3 BB's, 2 K's.

Ian Hamilton came back out for the 7th inning, and after getting 2 quick outs, he then allowed 3 straight singles (including a Bobby Witt Jr. RBI single, 11-3 Yankees) before getting pulled for Tommy Kahnle...who allowed a 4th straight single (an RBI for Vinnie Pasquantino, 11-4 Yankees), and an RBI walk (Salvador Perez, 11-5 Yankees) before finishing off the inning.

Luckily, Luke Weaver came into the game for the 8th inning and escaped without damage (even while allowing a single and a walk). And, Caleb Ferguson came in for the 9th inning and also escaped without damage (even while allowing 2 singles). These two scoreless innings ultimately ended the game for the Yankees to win 11-5.

Though, like I said, the pitching was great...to a point. The Yankees relievers were (mostly) able to limit damage, though they did allow 11 hits, and 6 walks to the Royals. This matched the number of baserunners the Yankees had. They were just lucky the Yankees were able to score runs when it mattered (they went 5-9 with RISP, while the Royals went 2-10 with RISP).

Ultimately, a win is a win. And, an 11-5 win is a great win. It becomes a game of nitpicking to find problems, and I don't want to find problems with this team. They are too darn good and have too good of an offense to be worried.

Let's go Yankees! Let's get the sweep this afternoon!

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Next Up - The Yankees (49-21) will finish the four-game series against the Royals (39-30) with a Thursday afternoon game in Kansas City. The Yankees will look to take the sweep with Nestor Cortes (3-5, 3.68 ERA) on the mound against Alex Marsh (5-3, 4.05 ERA). The game will be televised locally on YES, starting at 2:10 PM.