CHICAGO — On this night, Aaron Judge got the job done with his legs.
The 6-7, 282-pound outfielder beat out an infield single with the bases loaded and two outs in the eighth inning of a tie game, driving in two runs to spark a seven-run inning that sent the Yankees to a 15-7 victory over the White Sox Thursday night in front of 20,050 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Yankees (23-8), who got two homers from Giancarlo Stanton and yet another one from Judge, won for the 18th time in their last 21 games in holding on to the best record in the majors.
Thursday was an odd night in a ballpark that has seen its fair share of them between these teams over the years.
On this night it was a game that took on appearances of a Yankees’ runaway – especially after Judge’s 456-foot homer to left, his MLB-leading 11th, in the top of the seventh made it 7-4 – only to see the White Sox (15-15) tie it in the bottom half on a home run that was a part of yet another Jonathan Loaisiga implosion.
All of which preceded the seven-run eighth that ultimately made the game the laugher early on it projected to be. Stanton finished with six RBIs, Judge four.
After Loaisiga allowed a tying three-run homer to Yoan Moncada in the seventh, White Sox righthander Joe Kelly retired the first two Yankees he faced in the eighth. But Marwin Gonzalez worked a walk, as did pinch hitter Gleyber Torres and leadoff man DJ LeMahieu – who already had two doubles – which loaded the bases for none other than Judge.
The rightfielder hit a grounder to the hole in short and beat the throw to first, with both Gonzalez and Torres scorin to make it 9-7.
Anthony Rizzo walked and Stanton, already having hit his eighth and ninth homers of the season earlier in the night, lined a two-run single to center to make it 11-7. Josh Donaldson’s three-run homer, his eighth blast of the year, made it 14-7.
Luis Gil, the 23-year-old righty brought up from the minors to make Thursday’s start, showed flashes of the promise that make him one of the organization’s top pitching prospects. But he also showed why he had a 9.53 ERA in five starts with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre when the Yankees brought him up.
After Stanton gave Gil a 2-0 lead with a homer in the first, the pitcher gave it back in the second as the White Sox scored three runs. Gil allowed four runs, five hits and two walks over four innings in which he struck out five.
White Sox righty Dylan Cease, who came in 3-1 with a 2.38 ERA in six starts, allowed six runs and six hits over four innings in which he walked two and struck out 11.
The Yankees retook the lead almost immediately after falling behind 3-2. Judge made it 27 of 29 starts in which he reached base at least once with a one-out walk in the third. With Judge running, Rizzo yanked one down the rightfield line and into the corner where it bounced around, allowing the former to score and the latter to pull into third with a stand-up triple.
Stanton then roped a 0-and-1, 96-mph fastball to right, the two-run shot giving the Yankees a 5-3 lead.
After Gil pitched around a rare error by Rizzo, a four-time Gold Glove winner at first while with the Cubs, in the bottom half, the Yankees tacked on in the fourth.
Kyle Higashioka, off to a 7-for-51 (.137) start at the plate after striking out in his first at-bat, lined a two-out single to left off Cease, who a batter earlier recorded his 10th strikeout of the night when he fanned Gonzalez. LeMahieu followed Higashioka and hammered a 0-and-2 changeup into the corner in left, the RBI double making it 6-3.
