Pitching, hitting, defense . . . Yankees are excelling in all aspects lately

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The narratives of a 162-game baseball season change quickly.

The Yankees woke up here Friday morning with a 13-6 record, best in the American League, having won six straight games after sweeping the Guardians and the Orioles at the Stadium.

They had won eight of their previous nine games, pushing to the background — for now, anyway — the early-season they’re-the-same-as-last-year narrative spurred on by a 5-5 start.

Diagnosing the reasons for the overall record doesn’t take an advanced degree. It’s been a little bit of everything.

“Everyone had a hand in wins almost every day,’’ Aaron Boone said after the Yankees completed a sweep of the Orioles on Thursday with a 10-5 victory.

Boone trotted out a lineup that included Tim Locastro in centerfield and Marwin Gonzalez at shortstop as Isiah Kiner-Falefa got the day off. Locastro went 1-for-2 with two walks and two runs and Gonzalez was 1-for-3 with a run and two RBIs.

The usual suspects also contributed. Aaron Judge went 2-for-5 with a three-run homer, driving in four runs, and Anthony Rizzo was 2-for-5 with a run batted in.

Judge entered Friday hitting .296 with a .944 OPS, with four of his five homers in his previous six games. Rizzo hit a two-run homer in the first inning Friday night, giving him nine home runs and 21 RBIs in 20 games. He entered Friday leading the big leagues in homers and was hitting .290 with a 1.098 OPS.

“We played good baseball all around,” Rizzo said. “This team is built for the whole roster to be used. We go down [in a game] and we come back offensively. And we hold leads.”

The numbers across the board are impressive.

A rotation that before the season appeared to have plenty of question marks behind Gerrit Cole had allowed three or fewer earned runs in 18 of 19 starts and two or fewer earned runs in 15 of those starts.

Even with a few hiccups of late, Yankees relievers owned a 2.90 ERA, which ranked them third in the AL. The group had struck out 90 in 80 2⁄3 innings.

Overall, the pitching staff’s 2.92 ERA was the best mark in the AL and third in the majors, trailing the Dodgers (2.21) and Giants (2.32).

And an offense that started slowly has shown signs of getting on the roll Boone said it would after his team dropped two of three in Baltimore two weekends ago.

Going into Friday, the Yankees had scored at least five runs in each of their previous five games after doing so three times in their first 14 games. They had scored 37 runs in the previous four games. They entered Friday having hit 25 homers in 19 games. Fourteen of those homers came in the previous six games.

During the winning streak, the Yankees hit .313/.362/.583 and went 15-for-48 with three homers, two doubles and a triple with runners in scoring position, a scourge throughout 2021 and an issue early this year.

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The defense, woefully inconsistent in recent seasons, has been the strength general manager Brian Cashman predicted it would be in spring training after the acquisition of Kiner-Falefa and Josh Donaldson. Catcher Jose Trevino, brought aboard when backup catcher Ben Rortvedt suffered an oblique injury, has distinguished himself on both sides of the ball.

Entering Friday, the Yankees had not committed an error in 12 straight games, the club’s longest such stretch since a 12-game streak from Sept. 26, 2012-April 5, 2013. It’s their longest single-season streak since a 13-gamer from July 24-Aug. 14, 2012.

“We got contributions from everyone up and down, from different guys in the bullpen, from different guys in the rotation. So just a lot of complete efforts,” righthander Jameson Taillon said Thursday. “Some great defense in the series. I think more than anything, it’s that it’s coming from all the guys on the roster, not just a few.”

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.