AFL Recap November 7th: Yankees’ Austin And Judge Help Scorpions Defeat Desert Dogs

The Scottsdale Scorpions lineup featured four Yankees (Aaron Judge, Tyler Austin, Greg Bird, and Dante Bichette Jr.) and two of them (Judge and Austin) played key roles at the plate and in the field to help their team to a 1-0 victory.

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Judge, who manned right field for the Scorpions, went 2-4 with a pair of singles on the night. He also made his mark in the outfield.

With one out in the top of the sixth inning, Glendale’s left fielder Garabez Rosa (Baltimore Orioles organization) smashed a base hit into right field and made the mistake of rounding first base and heading for second. Judge got to the ball quickly and threw a strike to second base where shortstop Matt Reynolds (New York Mets organization) tagged Rosa out.

The significance of Judge’s throw became clear when the next batter, Corey Seager (Los Angeles Dodgers organization), lined a single to center field. If Rosa had reached second base safely he likely would’ve scored on Seager’s hit. The Scorpions got through the inning unscathed and the game remained scoreless.

Not to be outdone by his teammate, Austin made a game saving throw of his own.

As the game entered the ninth inning, the Scorpions led 1-0 Austin was 0-2 with a couple of walks and a stolen base. He also reached on a fielding error by Glendale second baseman Darnell Sweeney (Los Angeles Dodgers organization) which allowed Elias Diaz (Pittsburgh Pirates organization) to score and give the Scottsdale a 1-0 lead.

Scorpions reliever Angel Sanchez (Pittsburgh Pirates organization) struck out the first pair of Desert Dogs to hit that inning, but with his team down to their last out, Daniel Fields (Detroit Tigers organization) lined a single to right field. Sweeney then doubled to left field and Fields had no intention of stopping at third.

Austin got to the ball in enough time to throw to the cutoff man (Reynolds), who gunned Fields down at the plate to end the game.

Scottsdale and Glendale will face off again on Saturday at 12:35PM MST.