On the eve of one of the city’s biggest celebrations in years — a parade for the NBA champion Knicks — the Yankees got the party started early.
With Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart in The Bronx to throw out the ceremonial first pitches and then watch from a suite, the Yankees put on a show Wednesday behind another relentless offensive attack.
Every member of the starting lineup had at least one hit as the Yankees pounded the White Sox for a second straight night, 10-5, in front of 38,558, including two freshly crowned champions.
Brunson and Hart were the main attraction for many of those fans at the start of the night and whenever they came into sight following their first pitches, but the Yankees (45-27) gave them plenty to watch on the field, too, as they won for the eighth time in their last nine games.
Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Jazz Chisholm Jr. all homered as the Yankees raced out to an early lead and then piled on from there, scoring 22 runs through the first two games of this series against one of the other four American League teams that entered the night with a winning record.
Carlos Rodón grinded through five innings, with all of the damage he allowed coming on one swing: Colson Montgomery’s three-run homer in the top of the third inning, which pulled the White Sox (38-34) within 4-3.
But that was as close as it would get, as the Yankees blew the game open with a five-run fifth inning capped by Goldschmidt’s three-run home run to the short porch off righty reliever Tyler Davis.
With his 11th home run of the year, Goldschmidt has surpassed his home run tally for all of last season (10 in 146 games), doing so in just 47 games to help the Yankees withstand the losses of Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.
Meanwhile, another former MVP, Bellinger, finished a triple short of the cycle as he continued to do everything well.
In the process, the Yankees improved to 18-6 when facing a left-handed starter this season.
After clubbing four home runs in Tuesday’s 12-2 win, the Yankees picked up where they left off as Bellinger clubbed a two-run shot in the bottom of the first against White Sox lefty and former Mets prospect Anthony Kay.
Preceded by Amed Rosario’s two-out double, Bellinger continued his terrific left-on-left hitting by taking Kay deep for his 11th home run of the year.
The Yankees added on in the second inning thanks to the bottom of their lineup. The rally got started when José Caballero took a 93 mph cutter off his right foot, and after a brief check by Aaron Boone and a trainer, stayed in the game. Anthony Volpe came up next and drilled a triple to the gap, scoring Caballero for the 3-0 lead.
Ali Sánchez followed by spraying a single to right field to make it 4-0, giving the Yankees some rare run-scoring production from the catcher’s spot.
The White Sox briefly made things interesting in the top of the third when, with two outs, Rodón threw an 0-2 slider that caught too much of the plate and ended up in the right field seats on Montgomery’s three-run homer.
But the Yankees put a five-spot on the White Sox bullpen in the fifth inning to put the game out of reach.
It started with a single from Bellinger, then a double from Jasson Domínguez (from the right side against lefty reliever Sean Newcomb), and both came in to score on Caballero’s single to make it 6-3.
Volpe forced Newcomb out of the game when he smoked a line drive off his left shoulder on a fielder’s choice, but after Sánchez’s second hit of the game, Goldschmidt delivered a three-run shot for the 9-3 lead.
Chisholm was the last Yankee without a hit, but he joined in style with a solo blast in the seventh inning for his 10th home run of the year.