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Yankees observations from first series of 2023: Volpe runs wild, Cole and Brito excel, Judge and Stanton power

By Justin Girshon |
/ Sarah Stier/GettyImages
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The New York Yankees wrapped up their first series of the 2023 season with a clean 6-0 win on Sunday against the San Francisco Giants. For most of the series, the Yankees dominated, but the Giants were able to steal the second game on Saturday night.

With the Giants leading 7-5, Camilo Doval abruptly stopped a bases-loaded threat in the ninth inning by getting Giancarlo Stanton to ground into a double play to secure San Francisco’s only win of the series.

Aside from a few innings on Saturday, the Yankees looked great to open 2023. Here are my observations from the first series of the season:

Yankees Observations and Notes From Series Win vs San Francisco Giants

Anthony Volpe is running wild

Last season, the Yankees were one of MLB's worst base running teams. The Bombers' -5.5 FanGraphs Base Running (BsR) was 21st in the league, and their lack of speed and awareness on the bases plagued the team throughout the season.

Enter Anthony Volpe, the Yankees' No. 1 prospect, who stole 56 bases across Double-A and Triple-A in the minor leagues last season.

After drawing a disengagement from Logan Webb on Opening Day despite not taking a lead, Volpe got a great jump as Webb delivered to the plate, easily sliding head-first into second base for his first career steal.

In the next game, after registering his first major league hit, Volpe again stole second base, this time sliding head-first into the base without even drawing a throw.

Then, in the series finale, Volpe stole third base standing up without even drawing a throw. Per the YES Network broadcast, Volpe became the fifth player in MLB history to have a stolen base in each of his first three major league games. 

While Volpe will likely go through his ups and downs at the plate and in the field, his base running will be a positive for the Yankees throughout his rookie season.

Gerrit Cole and Jhony Brito excel for Yankees

After the whole spider tack incident, Gerrit Cole became public enemy No. 1 among starting pitchers. As a result, Cole has become one of the most underrated aces in baseball. On Opening Day, he showed that he should still be in the conversation for best pitchers in baseball.

Through three innings, eight of the nine outs Cole recorded were via strikeouts, and he finished the day with 11 punch outs, setting an Opening Day franchise record.

After Cole in the rotation, there was a lot of uncertainty heading into this series.Clarke Schmidt’s performance on Saturday didn’t help the uncertainty surrounding him, but Jhony Brito’s MLB debut on Sunday did.

Brito, the 27th-ranked Yankees prospect by MLB.com, took the bump in the series finale, and he was very impressive. Across five innings pitched, Brito struck out six Giants, only surrendered one walk, allowed just two hits and gave up no runs. 

The most encouraging part of Brito’s start was his excellent changeup. Brito threw the pitch 22 times, generating a 50 Whiff% and a 39 Called Strike + Whiff (CSW)% – two well above-average percentages for a given pitch. 

We know what Cole is capable of, but if Brito can continue his success, that would be massive for the injury-plagued Yankees rotation.

Judge and Stanton look powerful for Yankees

Coming off an American League-record 62 home runs in 2022, it was only fitting that Aaron Judge belted a baseball over Monument Park at 109.3 mph and 422 feet in his first at-bat of 2023.

Against the Giants, Judge went 6-13 at the plate, with two of his six hits being homers. In the bottom of the third inning on Sunday, facing a 1-0 count against Ross Stripling, Judge belted a line drive over the left field wall for his second homer of the series.

Two batters later, Giancarlo Stanton also hit his second homer of the series. On the first pitch of his second at bat against Stripling, Stanton unloaded. 117.8 mph and 485 feet later, he'd hit his second Stantonian blast.

Judge and Stanton are two of the biggest and most feared hitters in baseball. If the duo stays healthy, look for them to potentially combine for upwards of 90 trips around the bases.

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