Judge hits 3 of Yanks’ 9 homers with 8 RBIs as NY goes deep on first 3 pitches, routs Brewers 20-9

By Canadian Press on March 29, 2025.

NEW YORK (AP) — Aaron Judge combined with Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger to go deep on the first three pitches from Nestor Cortes, then hit two more homers as the New York Yankees set a team record with nine home runs in a 20-7 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday.

Judge hit a solo homer, his ninth career grand slam and a two-run drive in his 40th multihomer game and third with three homers. He finished with a career-high eight RBIs.

He came up just short of becoming the 19th player to hit four homers in a game when his sixth-inning fly fell on the right-field warning track for a run-scoring double. He flied out in the eighth against Jake Bauers, an outfielder and first baseman.

Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge homered starting the first on the unusually warm 78-degree afternoon. Major League Baseball said this was the first time a team homered on its first three pitches since tracking of pitch counts began in 1988.

Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Oswald Peraza also homered.

Traded from the Yankees in December, Cortes (0-1) gave up eight runs, six hits and five walks over two innings in his Brewers debut.

New York had five errors, its most since May 29, 2018, leading to four unearned runs off Max Fried.

Making his Yankees debut after signing a $218 million, eight-year contract, Fried allowed six runs, seven hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings. Yoendrys Gómez (1-0) got four outs for his first big league win.

J.C. Escarra, a 29-year-old former Uber driver and substitute teacher, made his major league debut for New York. He struck out in the seventh as a pinch hitter against Chad Patrick, who also was making his debut.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone said designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton, sidelined by pain in both elbows, had started taking dry swings.

Key moment

After the Brewers closed to 4-3 in the second, Volpe hit a three-run homer in the bottom half.

Key stat

New York homered eight times in a game twice, at the Philadelphia Athletics on June 28, 1939 (including two by Joe DiMaggio), and against the Chicago White Sox on July 31, 2007.

Up next

Yankees RHP Marcus Stroman and RHP Aaron Civale makes their first starts in Sunday’s series finale.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

The Associated Press

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