NEW YORK — Aaron Judge hit a go-ahead, two-run homer to keep up his power resurgence, Gleyber Torres added his 34th home run and the New York Yankees beat the Texas Rangers 4-1 on Wednesday night to move 43 games over .500 for the first time since 2009.
Judge started the season with five homers and 11 RBI in his first 20 games, then strained his right oblique April 20 while singling against Kansas City and didn’t return until June 21. He was a shell of himself when he came back, hitting .256 with seven homers and 22 RBI in his first 49 games.
Day after day, Judge said he felt fine and was merely slumping, even though evidence seemed to indicate otherwise. Balls that usually soared over fences were caught on the warning track.
His revival started Aug. 20 with 467-foot home run to left at Oakland off Joakim Soria, Judge’s first pulled home run this season. He homered in all three games that weekend at Dodger Stadium and starting with the West Coast trip opener at the Athletics, is hitting .317 with eight homers and 12 RBI in 15 games.
Judge lined a fastball from Lance Lynn (14-10) over the right-field wall in the third inning following Brett Gardner’s walk, the fifth Yankees player to hit 20 homers this season. He struck out in his other three at-bats, stranding five runners, leaving him with a .275 average and 45 RBI.
ROYALS 5, TIGERS 4: Jorge Soler extended his team record with his 40th homer, Hunter Dozier and Alex Gordon had three hits each, and Kansas City won at home.
INDIANS 8, WHITE SOX 6: Shane Bieber struck out nine over seven innings to snap a three-game losing streak and Franmil Reyes hit a two-run homer as Cleveland won at home.
NATIONAL LEAGUE
METS 8, NATIONALS 4: Justin Wilson and the bullpen held on this time, rookie Pete Alonso hit his major league-leading 45th home run and New York bounced back from a brutal loss to win at Washington.
A day after three Mets relievers combined to allow seven runs in the bottom of the ninth inning in an 11-10 loss to the Nationals, three pitchers combined to close with 3 1/3 scoreless innings.
Mets catcher Wilson Ramos went 0 for 4, ending a 26-game hitting streak that tied for the second-longest in club history.
REDS 8, PHILLIES 5: Reliever Michael Lorenzen hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning as Cincinnati pulled away at home.
The Phillies had their three-game winning streak snapped and slipped to three games behind the idle Cubs for the final NL wild card. Chicago begins a four-game series Thursday at Milwaukee.
PIRATES 6, MARLINS 5: Bryan Reynolds’ two-run bloop single capped a three-run ninth inning as Pittsburgh rallied at home.
Elias Diaz started the winning rally with a leadoff homer against Jose Urena (4-8) that drew the Pirates within a run. Pinch-hitter Kevin Kramer then walked and went to third on Adam Frazier’s double before Reynolds flared a single into left-center to give the Pirates their fifth win in six games.
NOTES
YANKEES: Outfielder Giancarlo Stanton will head to the team’s minor league complex in Tampa, Florida, this week for batting practice, among the final steps before returning for the final weeks of an injury-wrecked season.
“I feel like he’s really starting to build some momentum and doing pretty well,” Manager Aaron Boone said. “He’ll start getting regular at-bats this weekend and hopefully, really starting to ramp him up.”
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