BRONX, NY — Early solo home runs by Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe, a two-run seventh inning, and a strong pitching effort led by Carlos Rodon led the New York Yankees to a too-close-for-comfort Opening Day 4-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday at Yankee Stadium.
“This was a huge team win,” Wells said. “We faced good pitchers and felt like we just kept going after them. Not only on the offensive side but great plays on defense, and guys coming out of the bullpen in high-leverage spots.”
Against the team that traded him to the Yankees this winter, closer Devin Williams barely closed out his old club in his Bronx debut. With a three-run lead in the top of the ninth, he loaded the bases with no outs — a Joey Ortiz single followed by an Isaac Collins double and a walk to pinch-hitter Jake Bauers — before Brice Turang made it a two-run game with a sacrifice fly.
He struck out Jackson Chourio, the young Brewers’ fifth of the game, for the second out, and got Christian Yelich swinging to end it.
“I love that he didn’t break,” manager Aaron Boone said. “He ends up getting backed into a corner there, and having Chourio and Yelich barreling down at you with the game in the balance and not a lot of margin for error there, and he just kept making pitches.”
Rodon showed ace-like stuff with the Yankees missing two of their best starters, Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil, allowing just one run on four hits with two walks and seven strikeouts in 5.1 innings of work.
It was good enough for the win, as Wells led the game off with a home run before Volpe tacked on a solo shot of his own an inning later. Aaron Judge and Cody Bellinger also recorded an RBI each to extend New York’s lead late.
Wells wasted no time proving that, perhaps, the Yankees should not have waited so long to bat a catcher in the lead-off spot. In New York’s first at-bat of 2025, the first-ever catcher to bat lead-off in a regular season game took a 2-0 fastball from Freddy Peralta and lined it just over the right-field fence for the first home run of the season.
He also became the first catcher in MLB history to hit a lead-off home run on Opening Day.
“It was awesome,” Wells said. “Just a really cool experience for myself, not doing it ever, and it was cool to hear the fans and just be the first batter of the season… Obviously not playing to break records, but it’s pretty cool.”
Home-field advantage was apparent from the jump, as Wells’ home run would not have been a home run in 29 of the other MLB parks, per Baseball Savant.
Volpe jumped on another 4-seamer from Peralta with two outs in the second, lofting his first home run of the year a few rows back from where Wells left the yard in right to make it 2-0.
Vinny Capra halved Milwaukee’s deficit in the top of the third when he jumped on a 2-2 fastball from Rodon and lined it into the left-field seats for his first-career home run.
It was the only blemish that Rodon had on his Opening Day ledger, as he got the hook with one out in the sixth after allowing a pair of walks. The Brewers loaded the bases with two outs against reliever Tim Hill, but the southpaw got out of it by inducing a Collins fielder’s choice.
Rodon threw 89 pitches and of his seven strikeouts — all swinging — five came on the slider. The other two were on changeups.
“Just his command of himself and his pitches,” Boone said of what impressed him about Rodon. “Probably ran out a little bit with the two walks in the sixth, but he was really sharp. I thought command-wise, good presence with everything. His stuff was good but I thought he was really in command of his motions out there and he just executed a lot.”
Judge added some insurance when his grounder down the third-base line hit off the bag and popped into shallow left field to score Ben Rice, who led the inning off with a walk and moved to second on an Oswaldo Cabrera single. Bellinger picked up his first Yankees RBI with a sacrifice fly to score Cabrera and open up a three-run lead.
