Aaron Judge crushed his 17th home run and Marcus Stroman pitched six scoreless innings as the visiting New York Yankees ran their winning streak to five games, knocking off the San Diego Padres 4-1 on Saturday night.
Judge, who has 11 homers in May, pulled into a tie for the major league lead with his two-run shot in the first inning. It was his fourth straight game with a homer. He also doubled and scored twice as the Yankees won for the 11th time in 13 games.
Stroman (4-2), fresh off his longest start of the season at 7 1/3 innings, lowered his ERA to 2.76. He surrendered three hits and walked one with five strikeouts.
Fernando Tatis Jr. broke up the shutout bid with one out in the eighth with a home run to center field, just out of the reach of Judge. It came against right-hander Luke Weaver, who walked the next batter but got two groundouts to end the inning. Weaver walked two in his two innings.
Clay Holmes pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his 15th save in 17 chances.
The Padres managed just four hits in losing for the fourth time in six games. They also fell to 10-18 at Petco Park. Jake Cronenworth tripled to lead off the bottom of the fourth, but Stroman stranded him there on a lineout, a flyout and a strikeout.
Anthony Volpe led off the game with a first-pitch single off Padres right-hander Dylan Cease (5-4). It extended Volpe’s hitting streak to 18 games.
Cease retired Juan Soto on a flyout, but Judge hammered the third pitch he saw, a knuckle curve right down the middle, for a bomb into the second deck in left-center. It went 429 feet with an exit velocity of 113.7 mph.
New York added two runs in the fourth when Anthony Rizzo singled home Judge, who opened the inning with a double. Gleyber Torres added a sacrifice fly for a 4-0 lead.
Volpe and Alex Verdugo had two hits apiece of the Yankees’ nine.
Cease went 6 2/3 innings, giving up the four runs on eight hits and no walks, with nine strikeouts.
–Field Level Media
