BRONX — The MLB debut for Yankees starter Jhony Brito couldn’t have gone much better than it did on Sunday.
Brito threw five scoreless innings and Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton provided him the offensive support in a 6-0 win over the San Francisco Giants. The 25-year-old got the nod on Sunday after an impressive spring training audition as the Yankees took hits to their starting rotation before the start of the regular season.
“I always thought about it debuting and having a good debut,” Brito said through a translator after the game. :”The reason why is because, you know, you have to be confident to do your job, you. If you start thinking of bad outcomes that’s usually when things get out of hand. So, very happy (for the way the game went).”
Brito was up for the task, striking out six batters and allowing just two hits before exiting the game before the top of the sixth. The righty took down LaMonte Wade Jr on four pitches to start off the game and got Joc Pederson to groundout to first to end the first inning.
The Yankees starter struck out five straight between the second and third, which included retiring the side in order in the third inning. And he worked out of a small jam in the fourth after walking Michael Conforto only to force J.D. Davis to ground into a double play.
“He kept pounding the strike zone, had good stuff with his fastball and both his four and two-seam and that really good changeup,” manager Aaron Boone said about Brito. “He was able to land the breaking ball enough too for strikes to get back in some counts. But more of what we’ve seen, you know, very at ease out there, very comfortable fielding the ball. Fielded his positioned well. And just a really good performance and an important performance for us. when we needed a little bit of length when you know, he’s not all the way built up even Yet.”
It was a big third inning that got the Yankees’ offense going when Judge and Stanton both him blasts that left the ballpark. Judge sent the second pitch of the at-bat sailing to left center field to give New York the 1-0 lead.
Two batters later Stanton hit a rocket of a shot to deep center field that put the Yankees up 3-0. The two-run homer went 485 feet into the bar area in center, which marked the eighth time in Stanton’s career that he hit a home run 480 feet or further, according to ESPN Stats & Info.
The bomb was also Stanton’s second furthest since Statscast.
“That’s cool that it’s up there,” Stanton said. “I don’t worry about that too much, it’s just, put us in a good spot to win.”
He added: “As long as it goes over the fence, that’s cool with me.”
Both home runs were the second of the season for Judge and Stanton.
Kyle Higashioka made it a 4-0 game when he joined the home run party in the fourth inning on a 381 foot blast to left field and Anthony Rizzo drove Anthony Volpe home on a sac fly to center in the bottom of the seventh inning.
A wild pitch by Giants’ Sean Hjelle allowed Gleyber Torres to score to make it 6-0.
Jimmy Cordero, Ron Marinaccio and Colton Brewer all came into the game in relief for Brito and didn’t allow a run against them.
In his third major league game, Volpe walked, stole a base and recorded a run. He has a stolen base in each of his first three games this season and became the first player since Billy Hamilton in 2013 to do so.
