Yankees hit 4 HRs, beat Royals 12-2 for 7th straight win

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- — Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Gleyber Torres all homered and the New York Yankees won their seventh in a row, beating the Kansas City Royals 12-2 Friday night in a rain-shortened game.

The game was called after eight innings.

New York took a 3-2 lead into the seventh before scoring four runs, three on Judge’s homer. Torres connected for a two-run drive during a five-run eighth.

“It was a close game,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We get out of the gates with three runs, but it was 3-2 going into the seventh. There were some really good at-bats that set that up."

Nestor Cortes (1-0) allowed one earned run and eight hits in five innings.

“For the first two innings they were on my stuff,” Cortes said. Obviously you have to make adjustments. I started attacking the outside part of the plate more, and it gave me better results.”

The Yankees wasted little time in putting pressure on Kris Bubic (0-2). D.J. LeMahieu hit a leadoff double to the wall in right field and Judge lined out to center before Rizzo homered to center.

“You want to come out and start strong,” Rizzo said. “Obviously the first inning to get three runs for Nestor, who obviously grinded today, whenever you can get our staff runs early, so they can go out and pitch is nice. Judgy breaking it open in the seventh, and us scoring nine late, was another energizing thing for this team."

“Even when we go through innings where we don’t score runs, we know there’s big numbers on the way," he said.

Stanton with a 429-foot home run over the bullpen in left and the Royals got a reliever up in the bullpen. But that was all the Yankees got off Bubic, who retired the next 10 batters and 14 of the final 15 he faced.

“I thought we had really good at-bats against him in that first inning,” Boone said. “But to his credit — I know it’s been a tough start to the season for him— he kind of settled in and made some pitches. We didn’t mount that much of an attack. Good job by him.”

Salvador Perez snapped an 0-for-16 skid with an RBI double in the Royals first.

Bobby Witt Jr. doubled with one out in the second, extending his hitting streak to eight games. He then broke early and outraced Torres to third, but overslid the bag — Royals manager Mike Matheny was ejected when he argued that Torres pushed Witt off the base.

Isiah Kiner-Falefa singled with one out in the Yankees seventh, Kyle Higashioka walked and LeMahieu lined an RBI single off the glove of shortstop Nicky Lopez.

TRANSACTIONS

Yankees OF Aaron Hicks was reinstated from the paternity list. He missed three games. He took the roster spot of HRP Ron Marinaccio, who was optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

UP NEXT

RHP Gerrit Cole (1-0, 4.00 ERA) starts for the Yankees on Saturday against RHP Carlos Hernandez (0-0, 6.43 ERA).

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