NEW YORK — Alex Verdugo spent the last five months of the 2024 season dragging down the Yankees’ offense, so much so that in the season’s closing weeks, the team gave an abbreviated look to 21-year-old top prospect Jasson Domínguez. Not until late Friday night did word leak that manager Aaron Boone would stick with Verdugo to start the Division Series opener against the Royals, but the 28-year-old left fielder made the decision look brilliant. In a seesaw battle that included runs in every inning from the second through the seventh — creating five lead changes, a postseason first — Verdugo sparked a pair of two-run rallies with a third-inning single and sixth-inning walk, made a sparkling defensive play with a sliding catch to end the fourth, and drove in the decisive run in the seventh in the Yankees’ 6-5 win.
“He didn’t have his best season this year, but he’s gonna show you guys that this is his time,” said Jazz Chisholm Jr. “This is what he’s made for.”
During the regular season, Verdugo hit just .233/.291/.356 for an 83 wRC+, the ninth-lowest mark of any qualifier, and from May 1 on, he hit an even more dismal .225/.275/.336 for a 72 wRC+, the fourth-lowest of any qualifier. Nonetheless, Boone stuck with him through thick and thin, and the Yankees initially bypassed an opportunity to recall Domínguez — whose season included rehabbing from Tommy John surgery and then an oblique strain — when rosters expanded on September 1. They eventually called up Domínguez on September 9, and he started 15 of the team’s final 19 games, including eight out of the last 10 in left field while Verdugo sat.
But unlike last year, when he homered four times in eight games before tearing his right UCL, Domínguez scuffled at the plate (.179/.313/.304, 84 wRC+), leaving the door open for Verdugo. He was ready when Boone called his number, a decision that owed plenty to his familiarity with Yankee Stadium’s spacious left field and the way Domínguez, regularly a center fielder, struggled when shifted over to the less familiar position. “Obviously Alex has been tremendous for us out there defensively, and even though it’s been up and down for him in the second half, especially offensively, I still feel like there’s a really good hitter in there that can provide something for us at the bottom,” said Boone before Game 1.
Batting ninth in the order, Verdugo didn’t get his first chance at the plate until the third inning, by which point the Yankees trailed. The Royals came out swinging, tattooing Gerrit Cole’s offerings. While the 34-year-old righty needed just seven pitches to get through the first, three became very loud fly ball outs, with exit velocities of 102.5 mph (Michael Massey to right field), 108.4 mph (Bobby Witt Jr. to center field, with Aaron Judge making a long run before hauling it in), and 105.2 mph (Vinnie Pasquantino, also to center).
After tagging out Gleyber Torres at home on a fielder’s choice to thwart the Yankees’ scoring chance in the bottom of the first, Salvador Perez kept the streak of hard contact going by opening the second inning with a 103.9-mph single to left field. Cole then walked Yuli Gurriel, and MJ Melendez followed with a 100.1-mph single to right field. Juan Soto came up throwing, and his near-perfect peg beat the none-too-speedy Perez to the plate, erasing the potential run. The Royals did put one across when Tommy Pham flew out deep enough to center to score the tagging Gurriel; the exit velo on that one was a mere 99.9 mph. Cole finally missed a bat by whiffing Kyle Isbel on a 96.5-mph four-seamer upstairs.
After Royals starter Michael Wacha put down the Yankees in order in the second, he left a couple of sinkers high in the zone and the Yankees connected. First Verdugo dinked a single to left field, then Torres followed by hitting a towering home run over the right field wall, 100.8 mph off the bat with a 34-degree launch angle. It was a true Yankee Stadium Short Porch Special, a home run in none of the other 29 major league ballparks, and it put the Yankees ahead 2-1.
But the short porch giveth and the short porch taketh away. With one out in the fourth, Cole issued an 11-pitch walk to Gurriel, and then Melendez connected on a 96-mph fastball on the outside edge of the plate for a two-run homer to right field; the ball was 98.7 mph off the bat with a 25-degree launch angle, again an only-in-New-York job. With the Royals now up 3-2, Pham and Maikel Garcia sandwiched singles around another strikeout of Isbel, with the latter hit triggering a visit from pitching coach Matt Blake and activity in the Yankees bullpen. Cole hadn’t found anything to work consistently.
Verdugo came to his rescue, making a sliding catch on a dying quail off the bat of Massey for the third out. The ball actually hit off the heel of his glove, but he pinned it to his chest with his bare hand as he slid into foul territory.
“That’s as tough a chance as you’re going to have with a left fielder with that ball slicing like that on the run,” said Boone. “That’s easy to get handcuffed and mess that play up. But great play there.”
“He did a wonderful job tracking it down and timed his slide perfect and made it look easy,” said Cole.
“I’d like to say I’m known for my defense,” said Verdugo, whose metrics as a left fielder this year were strong (7.7 UZR, 7 DRS, 3 FRV). “I take pride in that. I want to help anybody I can, I want to save as many runs as I can. I take pride out there, so I just want to make the pitcher’s job easier.”
Though Wacha outpitched Cole through the first four innings, manager Matt Quatraro pulled him after he yielded a nine-pitch walk to Torres to lead off the fifth with Soto on deck. He had thrown just 70 pitches. “We know how good Soto is especially when he gets a third look at somebody,” explained the manager, while also noting that Wacha’s 21-pitch opening frame had been “emotionally draining… I’m almost accounting for an extra inning there after that first inning.”
Unfortunately for Quatraro and the Royals, the Yankees were ultra-patient against reliever Angel Zerpa. Soto snuck a single through the middle infield, and then Judge and Wells each worked seven-pitch walks, with the latter forcing in the tying run. Quatraro summoned righty John Schreiber, who got Giancarlo Stanton to foul out to Perez, and then induced Chisholm to ground to Gurriel, who threw home in time to force Soto. But that still left the bases loaded, and Anthony Volpe drew yet another seven-pitch walk to put the Yankees back into the lead, 4-3.
Cole wasn’t long for the game, either. After Gurriel smoked a 106.4-mph drive off the left field wall for a long single to lead off the sixth, Boone pulled his ace in favor of lefty Tim Hill, who retired Melendez on a fly ball, then got Pham to hit a grounder to shortstop at the end of a 10-pitch battle. Volpe, ranging to his right, made a sliding stop and threw from his knees. There was enough time to at least get the forceout, but the ball sailed past Torres and into right field, with Gurriel stopping at third base and Pham taking second. Pinch-hitting for Isbel, Garrett Hampson hit a sharp single up the middle that scored both, putting the Royals back ahead 5-4. Hampson got as far as second base on a Massey infield single before Clay Holmes, deposed from his closer role last month, put the fire out by getting Witt to ground out to Chisholm at third base.
For the night, Cole ended up getting just six whiffs on 43 swings, with a meager 24% CSW over the course of his 80 pitches. He struck out four but walked two and allowed seven hits and four runs (three earned). The Royals averaged 97.2 mph on the 17 balls they put into play against Cole, with 11 of those hard-hit balls of 95 mph or greater, matching his highest total as a Yankee, set on May 17, 2021 against the Rangers.
Facing lefty Sam Long, Verdugo started the sixth inning by taking a four-pitch walk. He took second on a Soto single (one of his three hits on the night, including a first-inning double), and after Judge struck out, scored the tying run on a Wells single to right field.
The Yankees took the lead for good in the seventh, though not without controversy. Chisholm singled to right off of Michael Lorenzen, then attempted a steal of second. Perez’s throw was high, and second base umpire Lance Barrett ruled him safe. The Royals challenged the call, and the replay appeared to show Witt getting the tag down before Chisholm reached the base. To the Royals’ chagrin, it wasn’t definitive enough to overturn the call. Matt Martell will have a closer look at the pivotal play in a companion piece.
Lorenzen followed by striking out both Volpe and Cabrera. Verdugo fouled off one cutter, then lashed a second to left field, allowing Chisholm to speed home and score what would prove to be the winning run, as the Yankees bullpen nailed the door shut.
From the point of Witt’s inning-ending grounder, Holmes, Tommy Kahnle, and closer Luke Weaver combined to hold the Royals to 0-for-10 with a walk and three strikeouts.
Verdugo heard the boos from fans (“I understand it. I was booing myself, too,” he said), and cited Boone’s support as well as that of his teammates (“I could probably list the whole team,” he said when asked about specific players) in helping him work through the uncertainty of the final few weeks of the season. He noted that his swing had gotten out of whack, and that he used some of his downtime while not starting in order to work on his mechanics:
“I think I had some back side issues just kind of with my left leg, just not really getting into my hip… I wasn’t controlling it and kind of putting the foot down and working through the ball. It kind of felt like, flip a coin — like I’m just going and trying to hit it.
“I was fighting an uphill battle against really good pitchers… Now I just feel like I’m in a better spot to hit. When I hit balls like I did against Michael [Wacha] to left field with some authority and a line drive like that, that’s when I know my swing is playing. That’s my bread and butter. My bread and butter is hitting fastballs on a line, oppo and then we hit the off-speed pitches center to right center and we get a little bit more loft. I think for me it’s just trusting my hands, being in my back side a little bit and just being a little bit more balanced.”
For one night at least, his swing was in order, and – just a guess here — he bought himself a longer runway to hold onto the starting left field job. With plays like he made, it’s tough for anyone to complain.
