PITTSBURGH (AP) — Aaron Judge marked his 1,000th game by hitting his sixth homer of the season and the New York Yankees beat Pittsburgh 9-4 on Friday in the Pirates' home opener.
Judge's shot to the seats in right-center in the seventh off Tim Mayza — who surrendered Judge's 61st home run during Judge's record-breaking 2022 season — boosted his career total to 321, the most by a player through his first 1,000 games. Those 321 homers also matched the number hit by Babe Ruth during his first 1,000 games with the Yankees.
Coming off his second AL MVP award, Judge has 17 RBIs in seven games.
Oswaldo Cabrera went 3 for 4 with four RBIs for New York. Anthony Volpe added three hits as the Yankees gave Max Fried (1-0) more than enough run support for the left-hander to collect his first Yankees win in pinstripes. Fried allowed one run and six hits with a walk and six strikeouts in 5 2/3 innings.
Pittsburgh's Mitch Keller (1-1) didn't make it out of the fourth inning on his 29th birthday. Six days removed from relatively smooth sailing against Miami, Keller didn't fare so well against the torpedo-bat-wielding Yankees.
While Keller kept New York in the yard during 3 2/3 innings, that's about all that went right. Keller allowed seven runs, eight hits and and four strikeouts as Pittsburgh fell to 2-6.
Ke'Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds both hit their first homers of the season for the Pirates, who were met with chants of “Sell The Team” on a handful of occasions, most audibly during back-to-back plays in the third in which shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa and recently acquired outfielder Alexander Canario made shaky plays in the field.
Key moment
After Reynolds' solo shot in the third gave the Pirates a small boost, the Yankees scored three runs in the fourth — all with two outs — to push their advantage to 8-1.
Key stat
139-38 — New York's record since 2020 when Judge goes deep.
Up next
LHP Bailey Falter (0-0, 3.00 ERA) starts for Pittsburgh on Saturday and RHP Marcus Stroman (0-0, 5.79) for New York.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
Will Graves, The Associated Press
