Everything was right in the world for the New York Yankees, who came into tonight winners of their last seven games and looked to build on their division lead. The Baltimore Orioles earlier in the day, and Marcus Stroman would face off against Pablo Lopez as New York looked to continue its ownage of Minnesota. In what turned out to be a bit of a slugfest, the Yankees would crush the Twins’ ace by making excellent swing decisions and having very timely hits. As for Marcus Stroman, he didn’t pitch particularly well, but that was far from the worst thing that occurred tonight.
While the Yankees completed the sweep, winning 8-5 to make it eight straight for the Bronx Bombers, an ominous cloud hung over them as Juan Soto exited tonight’s game during a rain delay with forearm discomfort.
Offense Shows Up to Complete the Sweep, Yankees Wait On Juan Soto News
This might be the single weirdest post-game piece I’ve written in my time with ESM. The Yankees won their eighth game in a row while also climbing to 4.5 games ahead of the Baltimore Orioles for first place in the AL East. The offense was clicking, they’re looking like by far the best team in the American League, but all it took was one update during the rain delay in between the fifth and sixth innings to completely change the complexity of this game.
Juan Soto went 0-1 with two walks before leaving the game with forearm discomfort, but let’s try to focus on the game action here. The Yankees went down 1-0 early thanks to a (expected) home run from Carlos Correa in the first inning, but they would fire right back with eight runs in the next four innings. Trent Grisham homered to give them a 2-1 lead in the second, Gleyber Torres doubled in the third and Austin Wells hit a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2, and Anthony Volpe would steal third to force an error to score, setting up Giancarlo Stanton for an RBI single to make it 8-2.
Marcus Stroman scuffled in the fifth inning with some questionable defense from Aaron Judge in left field and timely hits from the Minnesota Twins, as they pulled the game within three runs. With the rain delay after five innings, the two sides would just exchange zeroes and end this game with the same score it was entering the delay. The Yankees have now swept the Twins in the season series (7-0), the first time they’ve done so since…2009.
If the Yankees want to hoist a trophy over their heads the same way they did in 2009 though, they’ll need to pray that Juan Soto isn’t seriously hurt. Here’s what we know; Soto was pulled after the delay with left forearm discomfort, and that’s it. Jasson Dominguez was not pulled in his MiLB rehab game due to Soto, it would be insane to end a rehab assignment early and it would be even more insane if the Yankees reached a diagnosis on their superstar outfielder in an hour.
As I write this report, there is an update on Juan Soto. The Yankees will do imaging tomorrow to conclude what’s wrong, but they did remove him from the game due to a soreness that he had been experiencing for about a week now. Whether this becomes a long-term or short-term issue remains to be seen. Aaron Boone described it as precautionary, but it’s still something we can’t speculate on very much right now.