Spencer Jones was, is, and will always be an enigma. He’s an incredibly divisive player, one who dazzles with his pure athleticism at his hulking size, with true light-tower power, all with an Achilles heel of struggling mightily to make contact. He’s a true four-tool player and will test the absolute limits of just how good a player with those tools can be, with arguably the most important tool completely missing from his toolshed.
Jones has had his highs and lows this season, but the reality is that he’s steadily improved over the course of the season, particularly after each promotion. He’s getting by with his clear weaknesses, while not looking overmatched against velocity or left-handed pitching, two things that always were his bugaboos in the minors. Tonight in Anaheim, as September 1st bled into September 2nd, he was the catalyst in a 7-3 Yankees win that washed the bad taste of Monday night out of everyone’s mouths.
The Yankees were abhorrent in the first inning in August. As a team, they slashed .138/.214/.202 with just two total runs across 27 games, both on August 26th against Houston. Well, on the first day of September, they put up three in the first inning against Grayson Rodriguez on a pair of home runs by Jones and Jazz Chisholm Jr. The former hit his second titanic shot to right-center field in as many nights, while the latter snuck an excuse-me liner inside the left-field foul pole for one of the more fascinating home runs you’ll ever see.
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Gerrit Cole took the bump and looked like he might give some runs back after a leadoff double by Zach Neto, but he worked around it with strikeouts of Mike Trout and Moises Ballesteros to strand him. After Rodriguez settled down for the Angels, Cole worked around a two-out walk by Josh Lowe to put up another zero in the second.
The Yankees had scored three in the first with the long ball, but put up the fourth on a pair of singles and a double play in the third, as Ben Rice scampered home on a 3-6-3 double play from Luis García Jr. Is that a net positive play? Up to you, but it made it 4-0. The Halos got that run back in the bottom half on a Neto single, stolen base, and RBI single by Wade Meckler.
From that point on, both pitchers settled in to an extent. Rodriguez pitched around a leadoff single by Chisholm in the fourth and struck out a pair in the fifth, while Cole pitched into some trouble in the fifth before retiring Trout with two on and two out to maintain a three-run lead into the sixth.
Rodriguez started to falter again in the sixth, as a García leadoff double and four-pitch walk to Jones got him in big trouble. A strikeout of Chisholm and a long fly out by Grisham (which would’ve been a homer at Yankee Stadium and seven others) settled him down, but a walk to Ryan McMahon loaded the bases for Caballero. With the young right-hander nearing a career-high in pitch count, Caballero swung at the first pitch and grounded out to short, spoiling a big opportunity.
As if the baseball gods were punishing the Yankees for their misdeeds, the Angels came to life against Cole in the sixth. Singles by Meckler and Ballesteros on mistake pitches set up Christian Moore, who smacked a hanging slider into the right-field corner past the dive of Jones for a two-run triple, suddenly putting the tying run on third and yanking the 35-year-old ace from the game. It’s the second start in a row that Cole has unraveled in the sixth, which might be something to monitor.
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Brent Headrick was tasked with being the fireman and, as usual, he did his job. He fanned the pinch-hitting Jose Siri and got Oswald Peraza to line out. In the seventh against Tayler Saucedo, Austin Wells led off with a single, stole second, and eventually got to third, but was yet another runner stranded in scoring position. Headrick got the first two outs of the bottom half before giving way to Paul Blackburn, who struck out Trout to send this to the eighth.
Samy Natera Jr. continued the parade of lefties for the Halos and also got into trouble, walking Jones on four pitches and giving up a single to Chisholm. The slumping Grisham tried to bunt, but failed twice. Facing an unenviable situation behind in the count, he laced an RBI single to left-center field to extend the lead to 5-3.
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After that, McMahon dropped a beautiful bunt that Natera misplayed, loading the bases with nobody out. There was an opportunity to blow the game open, but Caballero got a 2-2 fastball blown by him to take some wind out of their sails. Paul Goldschmidt salvaged the inning with an additional run, pinch-hitting for Wells and driving a ball to center for a sac fly, making it 6-3.
Meckler, who’s starting to get annoying, led off the bottom half with a single off Blackburn, but it didn’t matter much after a Vaughn Grissom strikeout and a 6-6-3 double play by Ballesteros. The Yankees tacked on some more in the ninth off Sammy Peralta on consecutive singles by Bellinger, García, and Jones, with the latter notching another RBI to make it 7-3. McMahon walked with two outs to again load the bases, but no further damage would come.
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That insurance run proved crucial, as the Yankees were able to sit down David Bednar and trot out John Schreiber to make his Yankees debut in the ninth. He had to work for it with a lot of foul balls, but won a 10-pitch battle with Moore, a nine-pitch battle with Siri, and a much easier at-bat from the pinch-hitting Adam Frazier, getting a trio of fly outs to close out the victory.
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The Yankees hold serve in the AL East after the Rays’ win over the Mets, but once again move four games ahead of Boston for the top wild card after their 9-6 loss to the Mariners.
Don’t put your coffee cup away yet, folks. The Yankees will go for just their second series win at Angel Stadium since 2019 tomorrow night at 9:38 pm EST. It’s Cam Schlittler toeing the slab against Reid Detmers on Prime Video.
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