At Busch Stadium on Saturday night, Aaron Judge hit his 39th home run of the season, but St. Louis paid a price for the shot. Victor Scott II, a center fielder for the Cardinals, departed the game later with a sprained left ankle after jamming his foot against the base of the wall while trying to rob Judge’s third-inning blast.
Garrett Hampson took Scott’s position in center after he went 1-for-2 with a run and an RBI before leaving. With 116 games played and a batting average of.223, the youngster has been the Cardinals’ go-to center fielder. As St. Louis continues to face a challenging stretch, it will be important to keep an eye on his condition.
After winning 12–8, the Yankees secured the series victory and set themselves up for a sweep on Sunday. Judge recorded his first multi-hit game since July 13 and also drew two walks and had an RBI double. He has now hit a home run against every Major League Baseball team, with his third-inning blast bouncing past the top of the wall and into the right-field seats.
But the greatest spark came from Ben Rice. With seven RBIs, including a three-run homer off Sonny Gray in the fourth inning and a bases-clearing double against Kyle Leahy in the sixth, the rookie first baseman set a career best. Rice matched his three-homer total from last summer’s game against Boston with an RBI single in the seventh.
Yankees take down the Cardinals led by Ben Rice, Aaron Judge
“All night long, Rice gave us big swings,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone remarked. “He really carried us offensively and kept coming through in those spots.”
Ryan McMahon, who was just acquired, blasted his first Yankees home run, while Trent Grisham contributed four hits and four runs. Max Fried, a left-hander, had a rough start, but New York ended up with 15 hits. Fried (13-5) let up multiple home runs for the third time this season, giving up seven runs on eight hits in just over five innings despite recording his 1,000th career strikeout. Masyn Winn added a three-run bomb earlier in the game to bring St. Louis within striking distance, but Fried’s game was ruined by Nolan Gorman’s two-run rocket in the sixth.
For the Cardinals, Gray (11-6) wasn’t much better, allowing six runs on nine hits in five innings as St. Louis suffered its fourth consecutive loss. Closer David Bednar entered the game in the ninth to secure his 20th save after retiring Iván Herrera with two runners aboard, despite the Cardinals’ late surge.
In Sunday’s last game against Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas (6-9, 4.97), the Yankees, who are now aiming for a sweep, will send Will Warren (7-5, 4.34 ERA) to the mound. The more important question for St. Louis could be whether Scott escapes a major defeat. The Cardinals have made the 23-year-old a mainstay in their lineup, so losing him for any length of time would make an already difficult season even worse.
