Field Level Media
Sep 3, 2019
James Paxton tied a season high with 12 strikeouts while pitching seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball, and the New York Yankees hit five homers in a 10-1 win over the visiting Texas Rangers on Tuesday night.
Gary Sanchez homered twice and Didi Gregorius belted a three-run homer for the Yankees, who won for the seventh time in nine games a day after getting blanked for the first time in 221 games.
Brett Gardner and Edwin Encarnacion added two-run homers for the Yankees, who raised their season total to 261 -- six away from the single-season franchise record they set last season.
Encarnacion became the 13th player to hit double-digit homers for the Yankees this season when he connected in the seventh inning. It was his first game back after missing a month due to a fractured right wrist.
Those homers were more than enough for Paxton (12-6), who tied a career high by winning his seventh consecutive start by dominating and working quickly. Paxton recorded his fifth double-digit strikeout game.
He pitched 4 2/3 hitless innings in a little more than an hour before allowing a clean single to Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Paxton then fanned Delino DeShields Jr. and then easily got through his final two innings. The only other baserunner he allowed came when he walked Willie Calhoun in the first inning.
Sanchez hit a two-run homer in the first, and the Yankees gave Paxton an 8-0 lead in the sixth. Gregorius and Sanchez homered on consecutive pitches off Ariel Jurado before Gardner went deep against Jonathan Hernandez. Encarnacion added a two-run drive in the seventh off Rafael Montero.
Scott Heineman hit his first career homer in the ninth for Texas off Jonathan Loaisiga.
Edinson Volquez (0-1) made his second appearance since missing nearly five months with a strained right elbow, and he allowed Sanchez's first homer in his lone inning. Jurado followed and gave up five runs on seven hits in four-plus innings.
Sanchez's second homer was his 34th, setting a career high. It was Sanchez's 14th career multi-homer game.
--Field Level Media