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Try it freeAll the Yankees needed to get their bats going again was to come in out of the cold.
With the game-time temperature on Monday night nearing an almost balmy 60 degrees, the Yankees pounded Kansas City right-hander Seth Lugo for four solo homers in a 4-1 win at the Stadium.
All of the home runs came from the left side and it was their biggest home run outburst since they hit four in the third game of the season.
It came at a good time for a Yankees team that entered the night having lost five of seven games.
“Like I said, it was cold,’’ said Jazz Chisholm Jr., who was one of the four to go deep. “It’s getting warm now, so we’re gonna warm up.”
Carlos Carrasco also had his best outing of the young season, limiting the Royals to just a solo homer by Bobby Witt Jr. in the third inning of his five-inning outing.
The bullpen followed with four scoreless innings in the two-hitter, as Devin Williams picked up the save with a scoreless ninth.
The Yankees tied the game with one out in the fourth, when Chisholm hit his second homer in as many games, a blast into the Yankees bullpen in right-center.
They added three more homers in the fifth, the first coming from Trent Grisham, a leadoff homer that gave the Yankees a 2-1 lead and snapped an 0-for-9 skid.
Ben Rice followed with his fifth homer of the year two batters later and Austin Wells added another shot with two outs in the inning.
“We had a handful of good swings from our lefties and were able to jump him,’’ manager Aaron Boone said of the team’s success against Lugo.
The barrage of homers was enough for the win against Lugo, who had given up just one home run in 16 ?/? innings in three starts prior to Monday.
“We all know he’s very aggressive in the zone,” Chisholm said of their approach against Lugo. “The last couple games, he’s been in the strike zone a lot before two strikes, so get your pitch early.”
Three of the four homers, in fact, came on the first or second pitch of the at-bat.
Charles Wenzelberg/New York Post
Carrasco, the veteran right-hander, allowed just one hit — the Witt homer — before leaving after 79 pitches.
The outing was a vast improvement over Carrasco’s previous start, when he gave up three home runs.
And with Clarke Schmidt set to take the injured Marcus Stroman’s spot in the rotation — and no other help on the horizon — the Yankees may continue to rely on Carrasco.
The victory came against the perfect elixir for the Yankees: an AL Central opponent, as they improved to 26-9 since 2024.
The night got off to a bit of a rough start for the Yankees and Carrasco, who walked two of the first three batters of the game.
But he got out of the 26-pitch top of the first without allowing a run and retired seven in a row following his first-inning walk to Vinnie Pasquantino before Witt took him deep with two outs in the third, ending a 10-pitch at-bat with a shot into the left field seats.
Pasquantino nearly made it back-to-back homers for the Royals, but Aaron Judge was able to catch up to his fly ball on the warning track in right.
After Carrasco retired 14 of the final 15 batters he faced, the bullpen took over to start the sixth, as Fernando Cruz retired all four batters he faced, fanning three, before giving way to lefty Tim Hill and Luke Weaver before Williams finished it.
