The New York Yankees hit Kyle Gibson so hard Tuesday that we might have to start debating about torpedo bats again.
Facing the Baltimore Orioles, New York welcomed veteran starter Kyle Gibson back to the big leagues with three straight homers. Unlike Nestor Cortes Jr. last month, Gibson can at least say he didn’t allow them on three straight pitches.
Instead, he allowed them on five to Trent Grisham, Aaron Judge and Ben Rice.
Per MLB, it’s the first time in league history that a team has led off a game with three straight homers twice in one season. The Yankees accomplished that before the end of April.
Paul Goldschmidt grounded out in the next at-bat to give Gibson some relief, but then Cody Bellinger came through with a fourth homer in five batters to make it 4-0. That marked the second time this season that the Yankees opened a game with four homers from their first five batters, joining the Cortes violence.
That wasn’t even the end of the damage, as doubles from Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Volpe and a single from Oswaldo Cabrera made it 5-0. Chisholm’s hit was initially ruled a triple, meaning the Yankees were an umpire ruling away from having a four-homer game and a cycle in their first turn through the order.
Gibson exited the inning with a 45.00 ERA. He was making his season debut after signing with Baltimore on March 21 and accepting a minor-league assignment because there wasn’t enough time left in spring training for him to get ready for the season.
With the game already going badly, the Orioles left Gibson out there for the second inning. He allowed another homer to Rice.
Gibson finally exited after 3 2/3 innings, having surrendered 11 hits and nine earned runs and begun his season with a 22.09 ERA.
It wasn’t all good for the Yankees, though, as Chisholm exited the game due to “right flank discomfort” after his hit, per the team.
Yankees’ bats have been incredible this season; the Orioles’ arms have not
The beginning of Tuesday’s game was two teams playing familiar roles. The Yankees now have 14 homers in the first inning this season, giving them more than the Tampa Bay Rays have hit all season (13). Those four homers also pushed New York past the Los Angeles Dodgers for the MLB home run lead, with 49.
New York entered Tuesday second in MLB in runs scored, behind only the Chicago Cubs, and also leads the league in all three triple-slash numbers, hitting .263/.347/.462 as a team.
And the Orioles, well, this is a team whose rotation outlook was so dire it gave $5.25 million to Gibson, in his age-37 season, to help fill out the rotation during spring training. The Orioles were ostensibly a contender entering this season, two years after their breakout, 101-win season in 2023, yet they entered Tuesday with the third-worst starting ERA in baseball (5.62), ahead of only the Miami Marlins and Colorado Rockies.
This has been an issue for the team all season. And Gibson’s performance certainly won’t help that effort.
The Yankees entered Tuesday in first place in the AL East, with a 17-12 record, while the Orioles are in the basement at 11-17. The Yankees had an AL-best plus-41 run differential entering play Tuesday.
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