The New York Yankees hit four solo home runs, including three in the fifth inning, to defeat the Kansas City Royals 4-1 on Monday night at Yankee Stadium.
Trent Grisham, Ben Rice, and Austin Wells all left the yard against Royals starter Seth Lugo in that game-turning frame to break a 1-1 tie and give the Yankees just their third win in the last eight games.
New York (9-7) finally got some premier pitching, too. Carlos Carrasco and four relievers combined to two-hit Kansas City after its starting pitching entered Monday night’s affair with a bloated 5.40 ERA this season.
Carrasco allowed just one hit in five innings of work, and it was a third-inning solo home run to Royals superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. to put the visitors on top.
Jazz Chisholm tied things up in the fourth with his sixth home run of the season, which was only a foreboding sign of things to come for Lugo, who allowed 16 home runs in 33 starts last season.
Grisham led off the fifth by taking a full-count, inside four-seamer and parking it into the right-center-field bleachers for his fourth home run of the season. Two batters later, Rice turned on an 0-1 inside cutter and sent it out.
Wells capped off the inning with a line drive that just snuck inside the right-field foul pole.
It was just the second time in Lugo’s career that he gave up more than two home runs in a start — the first coming while he was with the Mets on Sept. 17, 2020, against the Philadelphia Phillies.
