NEW YORK — A Yankees rotation held together with baling wire and duct tape to start the regular season received some needed positive vibes Sunday afternoon.
Jhony Brito, an arm the club liked at the start of the spring but not one it anticipated being needed for starter duty so quickly, made his big-league debut Sunday against the Giants.
The rookie righthander more than delivered.
Backed by home runs from Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Higashioka, Brito threw five scoreless innings in a 6-0 victory in front of 42,053 chilled fans at the Stadium.
The Yankees (2-1) won two of three from the Giants in the season-opening series.
The 25-year-old Brito, signed by the Yankees in 2015 out of the Dominican Republic for $35,000, cruised after a 27-pitch first, allowing two hits and a walk over five innings in which he struck out six.
“[Looked] like the same guy I saw last year,” said one rival scout, who has the Yankees system and saw Brito in 2022 while he was with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, where he went 6-2 with a 3.31 ERA. “A lot of strikes. Good changeup.”
Brito, who threw 76 pitches (51 strikes) and used the changeup to record each of his six strikeouts, pitched with a lead when he retook the mound in the fourth.
Judge teed off on a Ross Stripling slider with one out in the bottom of the third, his second homer in three games making it 1-0. Stanton, who homered in Saturday’s loss, hit a two-run homer later in the inning, a titanic 485-foot shot to center, which came off his bat at 117.8 mph, to make it 3-0. Higashioka, getting his first start of the season, homered off Stripling leading off the fourth for a 4-0 lead.
Brito’s most taxing inning was the first.
He struck out San Francisco leadoff man LaMonte Wade Jr. on four pitches, the last a 1-and-2 changeup. Former Met Michael Conforto battled for 10 pitches before flying softly to center where Isiah Kiner-Falefa, making his first career start in center, made the catch. J.D. Davis lashed a single to left before Brito got Joc Pederson to bounce back to the mound to end the 27-pitch inning.
The Yankees loaded the bases in the bottom half against the 33-year-old Stripling, who came in 0-5 with a 4.55 ERA in seven career games against the Yankees (four starts). Gleyber Torres, leading off with DJ LeMahieu getting the day off, singled and, after Judge struck out, went to second when Rizzo drew a walk. Stanton, who homered Saturday, lined out softly to short and Donaldson, who also homered Saturday, walked to load the bases. Oswaldo Cabrera worked the count full, then struck out swinging to end the 28-pitch inning.
Brito needed just 12 pitches to make it through a perfect second, striking out two, and struck out the side in the third.
The Yankees tacked on in the seventh. Anthony Volpe, who led off with a walk and stole second, scored on Rizzo’s sacrifice fly. Torres walked and eventually scored on a wild pitch to make it 6-0.
Jimmy Cordero, Ron Marinaccio and Colten Brewer combined for four scoreless innings after Brito’s departure.
