Yankees Torpedo Brewers

The Yankees' 4-2 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Opening Day at Yankee Stadium II was nice. It's not looking rather pedestrian.

Fans of other teams are already yapping about the new, unusually-shaped "torpedo bats" that 5 of the Yankees are using. Aaron Judge is not one of them.

Given how much the Major League Baseball office likes to mess with the Yankees, there is no way the organization would have let the players use the bats without first clearing it with said office. The bats meet the letter of the law, within the length, circumference and construction parameters set forth in the rules. So they're legal.

And there's nothing to stop the other 29 MLB teams from ordering the bats, to the specifications of their individual players, and using them in competitive (non-exhibition) games. So they're fair.

And, of course, we're getting whining about how the new Stadium is too easy to hit home runs in. Well, why don't the other teams take advantage of it?

It's like the old joke: A couple go on vacation. As they check out of the hotel, the husband looks at the bill, and demands too see the manager. He asks why there's an extra $75 on the bill. The manager says it's for their service for dirty movies on the TV. The husband says, "But I didn't use it!" The manager says, "It was there for you."

So the husband says, "Oh yeah? Then I'm suing you for $1 million for sleeping with my wife while she stayed here!" The manager, shocked, says, "I didn't sleep with your wife!" The husband says, "It was there for you!"

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So, on Saturday afternoon, the Yankees played the kind of game Brian Cashman seems to have designed them for: Offsetting bad pitching by bombing the opposition out of the yard. The Yankees set a team record with 9 home runs, 1 short of the major league record.

Former Yankee Nestor Cortés started for the Brewers, and the Yankees did something no MLB team has ever done before: They hit home runs on the 1st 3 pitches of the game: Paul Goldschmidt hit his 1st home run as a Yankee, Cody Bellinger did the same, and Judge hit one. Later in the inning, Austin Wells homered off Cortés. Anthony Volpe homered off him in the 2nd.

Judge had 3 home runs: He also hit a grand slam off Connor Thomas in the 3rd, and a 2-run homer off Thomas in the 5th. He had a chance to join Lou Gehrig, in 1932, as the only Yankees to hit 4 in a game, and he came close in the 8th, but could "only" manage a double. Jazz Chisholm Jr. hit one off Connor Thomas in the 3rd, and Oswald Peraza hit one off Chad Patrick, 7th.

The Yankees' scoreline for the 1st 5 innings was 43630. That ZIP Code is not in use, but if it were, it would be in Toledo, Ohio.

Max Fried also made his Yankee debut, but he didn't get out of the 5th inning, allowing 6 runs, although only 2 were earned. In other words, the Yankees had given him 16 runs' worth of support, but he wasn't going to be the winning pitcher. Instead, it was the 1st major league win for Yoendrys Gómez, a 25-year-old righthander from Venezuela.

Final score: Yankees 20, Brewers 9.

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Yesterday's game was doomed to be anticlimactic. And the temperature dropped: While it was unseasonably warm the day before, getting into the 80s, this game was in the high 40s.

Marcus Stroman, who might not even be in the rotation if everybody was healthy, but is now the Number 3 starter, gave up a run in the 1st inning, and 3 in the 1st 5 before being taken out -- like Fried, he stood to be the winning pitcher if he'd gotten 1 more out, but couldn't.

No matter. Judge hit a 2-run homer in the bottom of the 1st. Ben Rice hit a solo shot in the 3rd. The Yankees got 2 more runs in the 7th. They got 5 more runs in the 8th, including a 3-run homer by Chisholm.

Yankees 12, Brewers 3. The Brewers' best player in this series was Jake Bauers. He drew a walk as a pinch-hitter on Thursday. On Saturday, he had an RBI single, and, with the game out of hand, he pitched a scoreless 8th inning. And yesterday, he hit a 2-run homer, and, again, pitched a scoreless 8th inning.

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So the Yankees start the season 3-0, which is unusual. I'm not going to start the Magic Number countdown. I'm just gonna enjoy the nice start.

Today is a day off. Tomorrow, the Arizona Diamondbacks come to town. Then the Yankees go on the road, to Pittsburgh and Detroit, before coming home.