Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo homer as Yankees stay hot to beat Reds

CINCINNATI — Though this series against the Reds had “letdown” written all over it for the Yankees — especially after the previous eight games against AL East rivals Tampa Bay and Toronto — Aaron Boone didn’t want to hear it.

Boone, who spent the first seven years of his major-league career playing for the Reds, made sure his players heard him loud and clear.

“I’ve hit our guys over the head with how important this place is to me. We need to show well here,” Boone said with a smile.

He laughed a bit before adding: “I’ve been laying that groundwork for the last two weeks, telling them what a big deal I think I am here and [that] we need to perform here. So we’re going to be ready to go.”

Though the night was far from easy, the Yankees came through for their manager.

Behind Aaron Judge’s seventh homer in his last seven games — this one a 431-foot bomb in the first inning — a two-run blast by Anthony Rizzo and more standout work from their oft-used bullpen, the Yankees beat the Reds, 6-2, on Friday night in front of 35,177 at Great American Ball Park.

The Yankees, winners of 12 of their last 17 games, improved to 27-20.

“We’ve had a very newsworthy road trip,” Clarke Schmidt said with a smile after being charged with two runs and striking out six in five innings-plus. “We play [162] games and some of them can get a little bit monotonous and a little boring, so I guess it’s good to have a little flair here and there. It’s made for good entertainment.”

Schmidt played a role in that news/entertainment Friday night when he was sent back into the dugout by the umpires before taking the mound in the fifth inning, instructed to clean some black smudge off his left wrist, but more on that later.

Judge, slashing .353/.476/.941 in his previous nine games, launched a home run to center off Reds righthander Ben Lively in the first on a 2-and-2, 93-mph fastball. It gave Judge his team-leading 13th homer.

“I’m not going to compare to one of the most historic seasons ever,” Kyle Higashioka said of Judge’s current stretch, which mirrors many such stretches he had last season in hitting an American League-record 62 homers. “But he is as good as anyone’s seen him this year. He’s special to watch.”

Rizzo added his 10th homer, a two-out, two-run shot in the sixth off righthander Ian Gibaut that made it 3-0. Higashioka added a two-out, two-run double in the ninth for a 5-2 lead and scored on pinch hitter Harrison Bader’s single.

Though lacking the circus-like quality of most of the games in Toronto — the first two, certainly — there were some theatrics in this one. They occurred in the fifth inning when Schmidt was examined by all four umpires on his way back to the mound and was told to go back into the dugout to clean his hands. When he reemerged moments later and began warming up, Reds manager David Bell soon was ejected by plate umpire Brian O’Nora, who argued that Schmidt should have been ejected.

After the game, Boone and Schmidt said the fur from Schmidt’s glove combined with rosin and sweat to make a black substance on his left wrist that he was told to wash off.

“It wasn’t shiny. It wasn’t dark like pine tar. It was that fuzz from the inside part of his glove, I think,” O’Nora told a pool reporter. “As a crew, we told him to go wash it off. He washed it off; nothing was on his hand. It wasn’t sticky and it wasn’t a foreign substance.”

It was reminiscent of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli getting tossed April 15 at the Stadium when Domingo German twice was told to clean his hands but was able to keep pitching (German earned a 10-game suspension earlier this week after getting thrown out Tuesday night in Toronto for violating MLB’s sticky substance policy).

Jimmy Cordero, Albert Abreu, Wandy Peralta and Nick Ramirez followed Schmidt to the mound and closed out the Reds (19-25). Boone was able to go to Ramirez rather than Clay Holmes after Higashioka and Bader provided the three insurance runs.

After allowing a two-run double by Jake Fraley in the sixth, Cordero pitched out of a second-and-third, one-out jam by striking out Nick Senzel and Henry Ramos looking.

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.