Bronx Bomber Ball

The Yankees kicked off a historic week by taking three games from the Blue Jays. The Yankees tied the consecutive game home run record with a home run off the bat of Aaron Hicks in game one of the three-game. This game was initially a blowout, but Jonathan Holder’s implosion in the eighth resulted in the game becoming much closer than it should have. The Yankees were able to hold on.   Photo Credit: NY Post

It’s the weekend that baseball fans from across the pond have been waiting for all season. Major League Baseball’s inaugural London Series, between arguably the league’s two most storied franchises, takes place this Saturday and Sunday. These two rivals have played each other five times so far this season, with the Yankees taking home four of those wins. Coming into the series, the Yanks are a season-high 10 games ahead of the Red Sox in the loss column. The Yankees come in at a season-best 52-28 (winners of nine out of 10), while Boston enters plays with a 44-38 record after winning six of their last 10 games.

Right-hander Deivi Garcia of the Trenton Thunder has been selected to represent the Yankees in the upcoming 2019 MLB Futures Game.   Garcia’s value has skyrocketed this season after starting the season in High-A Tampa before eventually being promoted to the Double-A Trenton Thunder.  Photo Credit: Kevin Pataky/MiLB.com

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that something very exciting is happening down at third base at Yankee Stadium. Among the “replacement” Yankees who came up to join the team in the wake of half the team finding itself on the Injured List was Gio Urshela.   However, f ans expected the 2019 season to be another great one for 2018 Rookie of the Year contender, Miguel Andujar.   Not to mention, there was hope that the issue of his less than stellar fielding would resolve itself because his bat was too good to lose. Photo Credit: Newsday/Jim McIsaac

Yankees’ slugger Giancarlo Stanton, who was placed on the 10-day Injured List with a strained PCL yesterday, will be sidelined until at least August, per Brian Cashman in an interview with the media today.   Mike Tauchman was recalled from triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to take his spot on the roster ahead of the team's weekend series in London against the Boston Red Sox. Cashman said “it’s going to be a while” for Stanton, and called August “the sweet spot” to get him back playing again. Anything earlier would be a bonus. https://t.co/JtSGPi8yYs — Bryan Hoch (@BryanHoch) June 27, 2019

In a back-and-forth slugfest, the Yankees erased two deficits, including one of five runs, to beat the Blue Jays, 8-7, in walk-off fashion Wednesday. The win clinched a series sweep of the Blue Jays for the Yanks, and they finished off their final home stand of the season’s first half with a 9-1 record. After today’s win, New York is now a season-best 24 games above .500 at 52-28. They lead the American League East by 6.5 games. Photo Credit: Seth Wenig/AP Photo

The New York Yankees entered Tuesday as the hottest team in baseball having won nine of ten ballgames. Coming into the night they had a five-game lead on the Rays, an eight-game lead on the Red Sox, and were a half-game back of the Twins from holding the AL’s best record. Their hot play continued as the Bronx Bombers topped the Toronto Blue Jays 4-3, clinching a series win ahead of Wednesday’s matinee.

With DJ LeMahieu’s home run in the first inning of tonight's game, the Yankees officially hold the record for the most consecutive games hitting a home run. Aaron Hicks tied the record with his home run in yesterdays’ game and his teammate, LeMahieu took no time to put the Yankees in sole possession of the feat.   Photo Credit: ESPN.com

The Yankees are rolling, having won eight of their last nine games as they welcome the Toronto Blue Jays to the Bronx for a quick three-game series. The Yanks are 1-2 so far against the Jays, having last played them in early June. It’s worth noting, however, that this is a very different Yankees team than the one that started out this month.    Toronto comes in struggling, as they come in at 8-13 in the month of June and are currently a whopping 20.5 games back of first place in the American League East. However, they did just take two out of three from the Boston Red Sox, which gives them a bit of momentum heading into this series. They are a slightly better team on the road than at home, with a .385 winning percentage in away games as compared to .342 at the Rogers Centre. Hitting has been an issue for Toronto, as they are well below league average in most major hitting categories and dead-last in team batting average. Pitching has also not been a strong suit, as they lead the

Gleyber  Torres and Gary Sanchez became the first pair of Yankees teammates ever to homer in three straight games as the Yankees took down the Astros 4-1 and extended their winning streak to seven games.   The night also marked the return of Aaron Judge to the Yankees lineup, although he was unable to make an impact, going 0-4 with a pair of strikeouts. Sanchez’s blast was the more impressive of the two, coming in the third inning off Brad Peacock after a Cameron Maybin single. The ball traveled over the opposing bullpen and deep into the stands. It was measured at 481 feet, the fourth longest homer hit this year according to  Statcast . Maybin had to leave the game after the home run, with what was later announced as a strained calf. However, Aaron Boone has announced Maybin will face a significant injured list stint, so the injury might be worse than that. Torres’s homer came in the seventh, an opposite field shot just over the right-field wall after a Brett Gardner double. 

On the eve of Aaron Judge’s return to the lineup, the Yankees began an important four game set with the Houston Astros. While the Yankees have certainly been missing Judge, they have gotten healthy in other areas and rolled out a fearsome lineup to face their fellow contender on Thursday night. The Yankees opted to use this game as a bullpen day and the group turned in an effort that was good enough to bring home a win after their offense took over. Despite giving up some runs late, the Yankees brought home a 10-6 win and will now have Aaron Judge back in the fold on Friday. Credit:Adam Hunger/AP Photo

It's been a good run the past week for the first-place Yankees.  They are entering a series against the also first-place Houston Astros, fresh off a sweep of their division rivals, the second-place Tampa Bay Rays.  Meanwhile, the Astros come to the Bronx limping after getting swept by the now 34-38 Reds. While we at the BBB tend to focus on pitching matchups in our series previews, this series is going to be a notable one for reasons that relate to the Yankees’ offense.   Why?   More and more of the ‘A-Team’ is returning from the Injured List.   Giancarlo Stanton returned to the active roster this past Tuesday.   With his rehab assignment now completed,  Aaron Judge is slated to return by the end of the current week.   Didi Gregorius hasn’t been back for too long.   So, the spotlight in the press will be on the question of… who is going to be in the starting lineup? Does Aaron Boone sit Cameron Maybin to make room for Judge?  With Maybin's current home run hot

The Yankees 12-1 victory completed the series sweep of the Rays behind an offensive explosion and excellent start from CC Sabathia, who added another milestone to his historic career with his 250th career win. Sabathia is now the 14th pitcher in Major League history to reach 250 wins and 3,000 strikeouts, well on his way to Cooperstown.   Photo Credit: NJ.com

Coming into the season, the Yankees’ bullpen was expected to be one of the best relief groups ever assembled. For the most part, that has been true. Their top four options (Chapman, Ottavino, Britton and Kahnle) have all been elite. However, there are two underachievers that Brian Cashman and co. need to address quickly: Luis Cessa and Jonathan Holder. With Aaron Judge’s impending return, and a true roster crunch on New York’s hands, the Yankees’ management team should look to remove one of these two from their roster rather than the red-hot Cameron Maybin. Photo Credit: Rich Schultz/Getty Images

The offense came early, in the middle, and late for the Yankees as they took game two of this three-game series against Tampa Bay. The team’s home run streak continued to 21 games and they extended their division lead against the Rays with tonight’s win.   New York’s offense struck quickly off opener Ryne Stanek, with a Gary Sanchez sacrifice fly in the first inning to get them started. However, the hitting faltered a bit after the introduction of Ryan Yarborough, who held the Yanks scoreless for three innings. In the fifth, more runs would come off a few singles by DJ LeMahieu, Luke Voit, and Gary Sanchez again, and the big blows would come in the seventh and eighth. Cameron Maybin continued his white-hot stretch as of late, blasting a long solo home run off Oliver Drake into the second deck in left field to make it four homers in four straight games, and then the newest Yankee Edwin Encarnacion smashed another solo shot, this  one off  Andrew Kittredge to the opposite field

With the Yankees looking forward to some big returns and additions to their lineup this week, Masahiro Tanaka took the mound on Monday night and reminded everyone that the Yankees have some pretty good players at their disposal already. Aided by some early offense, Tanaka was never threatened and turned in the best outing by a Yankees’ starter this season. Although this game saw the Yankee debut of slugger Edwin Encarnacion, Tanaka was the story as he spun a gem and his complete game shutout helped the Yankees to a 3-0 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. Credit: Getty Images/Kyodo News