Aaron Judge's first home run since return from injured list sparks Yankees' 8-3 win at Twins

· Yahoo Sports

The Yankees opened a three-game series at the Minnesota Twins with an 8-3 win Monday, highlighted by a six-run eighth inning in which RF Aaron Judge hit his first home run since he returned from a three-month stint on the IL.

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Takeaways

  1. RHPWill Warren was on his game as he continued a strong stretch over the past month in a game where the Yankees (87-63) struggled offensively and defensively. Warren allowed two unearned runs in 5.2 IP, scattering five hit while striking out six and walking two on 92 pitches (58 strikes). Only one run of support -- and 3B Ryan McMahon's costly one-out error during Kody Clemens' at-bat, which kept the sixth inning going when Warren would have otherwise been through clean between Brooks Lee's leadoff groundout and Ryan Jeffers' strikeout -- prevented Warren (10-6, 3.89 ERA) from earning his 11th win this season. CF Spencer Jones did Warren no favors during Emmanuel Rodriguez's left-center gapper with two outs in the sixth inning when Jones misplayed the ball at the warning track and allowed Josh Bell, who previously reached on a two-out single, to score from first base while Rodriguez legged out a triple.
  2. Ninth-batting 2BJosé Caballero stepped up with a third-inning solo shot -- his 14th home run this season -- to put the Yankees in front before delivering again on an eighth-inning RBI single through the middle that scored SS Greg Lombard Jr. from third base and tied the game at 2-2. September has not been kind to Caballero, who entered Monday with one hit in 16 at-bats, but he gave the lifeless Yankees a pulse before they mounted their late-game breakthrough against the Twins (70-80).
  3. Ben Rice, who led off the game with a walk, built off his sixth-inning single and Caballero's aforementioned knock in the ensuing at-bat. With Anthony Volpe -- pinch running for McMahon, who followed Lombard's leadoff double by singling on a groundball to short -- and Caballero in scoring position, Rice's one-out poke past the Twins' tightened infield put gave the Yankees their first lead of the game.
  4. They built on Rice's 91st and 92nd RBI of the season two at-bats later when Judge followed LF Cody Bellinger's single and snapped an 0-for-10 skid with a three-run homer to left field that cushioned the Yankees' 7-2 lead. More importantly for Judge, who is in his sixth game back from an IL stint that sidelined him from May 31 until last Wednesday, he went deep for the first time since May 24. With 12 games left, the Yankees need the best possible version of Judge -- who has 18 home runs and 41 RBI over 65 appearances this season -- entering October.

Who's the MVP?

Caballero, whose first multihit performance since Aug. 30 -- a 3-for-5 effort in the Yankees' 16-1 win over the Boston Red Sox -- kept New York alive before Rice and Judge broke Monday's game open.

Highlights

What's next

Another 7:40 p.m. game at Target Field in Minneapolis with New York LHP Max Fried (4-4, 2.73 ERA) and Minnesota RHP Bailey Ober (7-5, 4.28 ERA) set to start Tuesday.

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