Andres Chavez
The New York Yankees won their Opening Day assignment against the San Francisco Giants on Wednesday night. They did it with a convincing 7-0 in front of the Giants fans at Oracle Park.
Max Fried was amazing on the mound and the bullpen, with Jake Bird, Brent Headrick, and Camilo Doval, completed the masterpiece. Having a productive, relentless offense helped alleviate some pressure off the arms, though.
After all, the Yankees put seven runs on the scoreboard against ace Logan Webb, an established ace who posted a 3.22 ERA and won 15 games last year. Six of them were earned.
Running It Back Has Its Benefits
This, however, should be surprising to absolutely no one. The Yankees are famously ‘running it back’ with their offense this year, repeating most of the names that helped carry the unit in 2025. Trent Grisham, Cody Bellinger, and Paul Goldschmidt, all free agents in the offseason, were retained, and they joined Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Giancarlo Stanton, Austin Wells, Jose Caballero, Ben Rice, and others to form one of the most imposing lineups in baseball.
On Wednesday, they scored seven times and had 10 hits against the Giants, even if only one of them, a Grisham triple, went for extra bases. They did all that damage without their best friend: the home run. That certainly raised a few eyebrows, including manager Aaron Boone’s.
“On a night when we didn’t hit the ball out of the ballpark, we had a lot of good pressurized at-bats,” Boone told MLB.com. “We can beat you in a lot of different ways.”
Boone is right: the Yankees can beat you with patience, with contact, and with power. They can put together a five-run rally as they did in the second inning, without the ball leaving the yard.
The Home Runs Will Come
Of course, hitting the ball out of the park is something that the Yankees do quite well. Their 274 homers led the league last year, as did their 849 runs scored and 119 wRC+.
Fried was also impressed. “This team led the Majors in runs scored [849] last year, and we have a lot of the same guys back,” he said. “One through nine, we can beat you. We obviously have the best player in the world [Aaron Judge] hitting for us, but we also have a lot of really good guys able to support him.”
It’s curious that Judge had a rough day at the plate, and the Yankees didn’t even need him. He went 0-for-4 with four punchouts, but it didn’t matter. The Yankees had Webb’s number anyway.
This is one of the most dangerous lineups in baseball, and once the home runs start coming, it will be a nightmare for opposing pitching staffs.
More about:New York Yankees
