Sunday, May 13, 2018

Stanton Sizzles To Lead Yankees To Series Win

Giancarlo Stanton in the batting cage before Friday's game. Photo by Jason Schott.


Giancarlo Stanton had a big afternoon to lead the Yankees to a 6-2 win over the Oakland A's on Sunday afternoon at The Stadium.

The Yankees took two of three from Oakland to finish the homestand with a record of 7-2.

The Yankees have now won 19 of their last 22 games, and are now 28-12, tied with Boston for the best record in the American League East and the entire league.



Stanton has played a big part in this run, and this game was an example of how he has been the past few weeks, as he went 4-for-4 with a home run, three RBI and a run scored.

It started in the first inning, when Stanton got a two-run single and later scored on an RBI single from Aaron Hicks that made it 3-0 Yankees.

In the fifth, Stanton launched a 403-foot homer to right center that made it 4-1 Yankees.

That home run was his 10th of the season, making it nine straight years he has hit double digits in homers. He is the fourth Yankee to reach that mark this season, joining Aaron Judge, who has 11 homers, and Didi Gregorius and Gary Sanchez, who also have 10.

They are the first quartet of teammates in Yankees history to have at least 10 homers in the team's first 40 games of a season.

It is so rare that, prior to this year, no three Yankees had ever done it in the same year.

This is the first team to do this since the 2003 Rangers, led by Juan Gonzalez and Carl Everett, who had 13 homers through 40 games, followed by Alex Rodriguez with 11 and Rafael Palmeiro with 10. A-Rod went on to win the American League Most Valuable Player that season.

Stanton is the seventh Yankee to go 4-for-4 twice in the first 40 games of a season, with the first time on April 23 vs. Minnesota. He is the first Yankee to do it since Alfonso Soriano in 2001, interesting since that was his first year in pinstripes as well.

There is no question that as Stanton has heated up, so have the Yankees. In his last 11 games, since May 2 against Houston, a night he hit two homers, he it hitting .342 (13-for-38) with a .444 on-base percentage, and .842 slugging percentage with five HR, 11 RBI, 8 runs, 4 doubles, and 6 weeks. He has raised his average to .252, the highest since he was at .259 on April 12.

Stanton is on the cusp of a big milestone, as he now has 999 career hits.  Half of his hits, 499, are extra-base hits, with 277 homers, 211 doubles, and 11 triples.

Luis Severino improved to 6-1 on the season, as he allowed one run on five hits and a pair of walks, with seven strikeouts in six innings.

The Yankees hit the road for an eight-game road trip, starting with two games in Washington Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by three next weekend in Kansas City, and three in Texas from Monday the 21st to 23rd.

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