Yankees had a blast Tuesday night, but now it's about 'turning the page'

TAMPA, Fla. — Aaron Boone lost count.

“We hit nine?” the Yankees manager said incredulously, and quite sincerely, early Wednesday morning at Steinbrenner Field.

Indeed, his team did.

Incredibly, for the second time this season.

The Yankees hit a franchise record-tying nine home runs in their 13-3 evisceration of the Rays Tuesday night, with Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton going back-to-back in the first inning.

It was reminiscent of March 29 against the Brewers at the Stadium when the Yankees first set the nine-homer record, with Paul Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge going back-to-back-to-back on three straight pitches by former Yankee Nestor Cortes to start that game.

The Yankees became the first team in big-league history to hit at least nine homers in a game twice in a single season.

“To do it twice, that’s remarkable,” Boone said. “And they’re some ones that were seriously hit, too. Just a really impressive offensive showing against a team that, obviously, is not always easy to score runs against.”

Bellinger, Stanton and one of the newest Yankees, Jose Caballero, acquired from the Rays at the trade deadline, each hit two homers apiece. It marked just the second time in franchise history the Yankees saw three players hit at least two homers in a game. The first time was May 30, 1961, when Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and Bill Skowron hit two apiece.

“We have a really good offense,” Bellinger said. “The ebbs and flows of a 162-game season, it’s not always going to be pretty, but we all believe in each other, and the talent’s there, and we’re doing a good job of putting it all together. It’s been fun to be a part of.”

Tuesday night marked just the fourth time in MLB history a team hit at least nine homers in a game, joining the Yankees on March 29, the Reds on Sept. 4, 1999 (Boone hit the first of Cincinnati’s eight that day in Philadelphia) and the Blue Jays, who set the record by hitting 10 on Sept. 14, 1987, at home against the Orioles.

“We gotta pick it up,” Bellinger said with a laugh.

The Yankees came into Wednesday night’s series finale having hit an MLB-leading 204 homers, 17 more than the next-highest team, the Dodgers, who entered Wednesday with 187 (the next-highest American League teams were the Angels and Mariners, each with 178).

“Once again, they made it easy,” Carlos Rodon, who picked up the win on Tuesday, said with a smile of his offense.

Speaking before Wednesday night’s game — and with the Red Sox due to come into the Stadium for the start of a massive four-game series starting Thursday night — Boone spoke of the importance of “turning the page” on Tuesday’s historic output.

“It’s on to a new day,” Boone said. “It’s hard, sometimes, for people to understand that there’s days you get it handed to you, there’s days you scuffle, there’s days you have like [Tuesday] where everything syncs up and it’s a great day. And now it’s on to the next one.”

Next after the Rays are the Red Sox, whom the suddenly hot Yankees led by a game for the AL’s first wild-card spot (they led the Mariners by a game as well). The Yankees, winners of four straight and seven of their last nine going into Wednesday, pulled into second place in the East, 4 1⁄2 games behind the Blue Jays, who lost Wednesday afternoon.

It has been, by all appearances, the beginning stages of a turnaround, which the Yankees have seemingly been promising for weeks and weeks, from what had been a roughly two-month stretch of poor baseball by the club.

“Obviously, we’re kind of neck-and-neck with them and some others,” Boone said of the importance of the Red Sox series. “All the series are big; this one, with your rival, when you’re fighting for a lot at this point of the season, will have I’m sure a big feel to it. Excited to get after it with them. They’ve had our number in the first couple series [5-1 vs. the Yankees this year]. Hopefully, we can turn that around moving forward.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.