Yankees get Aaron Judge back, but Giancarlo Stanton steals show with three homers

TAMPA, Fla. — Aaron Judge returned at last to the Yankees’ lineup Wednesday night.

Then Giancarlo Stanton completely stole the show.

The DH/outfielder, who came into the spring having shed at least 15-20 pounds of muscle in order “to be a baseball player again,” launched a trio of titanic home runs against the Pirates.

One of them cleared the batter’s eye in center, another cleared the scoreboard in left, and a third missile-like trajectory merely sailed between the batter’s eye and scoreboard as the Yankees built a 9-0 lead through four innings at Steinbrenner Field.

Longtime observers at this ballpark, which opened in 1996, could not recall any hitter putting on that kind of performance. Clearing the batter’s eye, yes. Clearing the scoreboard, yes. But not both, and in back-to-back at-bats, no less.

Trying for a fourth homer in the sixth, Stanton hit a sacrifice fly to deep center.

“I haven’t hit three before,” Stanton said with a smile of having never homered three times in a game, spring training or otherwise. “It’s cool, and they’ll be erased in about a week [when the regular season starts].”

Stanton blasted a 2-and-2 Marco Gonzales cutter 455 feet off the top of, and then over, the batter’s eye in the first for a two-run homer, highlighting a four-run first. The inning also featured a lasered RBI double to right-center by Judge, who had not played in a week-and-a-half because of an abdominal injury, and an opposite-field homer to right by Anthony Volpe, who has swung a consistent bat all spring.

After a Gleyber Torres single, Juan Soto double and Judge walk to start the second, Stanton teed off on a full-count cutter from the lefty Gonzales and torpedoed it, 113.2 mph off his bat, 453 feet over the scoreboard.

Gonzales, if not shell-shocked enough, threw a 0-and-2 changeup in the bottom of the fourth that appeared low, but Stanton swatted it “just” 426 feet to left-center, making it three homers in three at-bats through four innings.

“Yeah, ‘G’ is weird,” manager Aaron Boone has said over the years upon seeing certain balls hit by Stanton leave the yard, with any of the ones hit Wednesday qualifying. “Every time he comes in after one of those, I just tell him, ‘You’re weird. You’re different.’ ”

Before leaving Kansas City for the offseason early last October after a year in which he hit .191 with 24 homers and a .695 OPS in 101 games (he spent a lot of time on the injured list because of soft-tissue injuries), Stanton promised “changes” over the winter.

Physical conditioning has never been an issue for the uber-lean 6-6 Stanton, but the frequency with which the veteran was pinched by lower-body injuries on a yearly basis since 2019, including a hamstring strain early in 2023 that cost him six weeks, convinced him his winter routine needed to be altered. Stanton would stay lean; some muscle would go.

“I just needed to be more mobile,” Stanton said upon reporting for spring training of what he hoped the drop in weight would accomplish. “A lot of setbacks [last season] kept me not moving the way I’d like to be.”

After Stanton’s monster night, he is hitting 11-for-35 (.314) with four homers, two doubles and a 1.073 OPS in 12 Grapefruit League games, playing several of those games in the outfield.

“The way I feel moving around and everything is as planned for what I did in the offseason,” Stanton said Wednesday night. “It’s a good start, a good preview in the spring and now we’ve got months to keep it together.”

Stanton’s efforts completely overshadowed Judge’s return to the field after a fair degree of mystery surrounding his condition. The club’s captain had not played since being pulled after two at-bats against Atlanta and then did not pick up a bat again until hitting indoors last Friday.

Judge looked no worse for the wear, stepping into the box in the first inning after a Soto walk and lacing a 2-and-2 cutter into the gap in right-center. Judge, who says he typically wants about 30 at-bats in the spring to feel regular-season ready, finished 1-for-1 with a walk and is 3-for-15 (.200) with two doubles, three walks and five strikeouts in seven games. Boone said Monday, and again on Wednesday, the plan was for Judge to play four of the final six exhibition games.

“I think we’ll be in a good spot,” Judge said. “We’re going to get my work in, like I have been the past couple of weeks in the cage], and we’ll be ready to go for Opening Day.”