BRONX, N.Y. — Ryan Weathers showed up to work Sunday carrying an ERA over 4.00 and a rotation spot that some already considered borrowed time. He proceeded to throw the best seven innings of his young Yankees career. Nobody in the home dugout was complaining.
New York walked out of Yankee Stadium with a 7-0 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Sunday, finishing a three-game sweep that felt, at times, like the AL’s top team using the AL’s worst team for batting practice. The combined series score read 24-7. A football scoreboard would have fit just fine.
The afternoon started with a 2-hour, 45-minute rain delay before 40,198 fans who stuck around long enough to see the Yankees (13-9) close out a 5-2 homestand. The Royals dropped to 7-15 and extended their losing skid to seven straight, including their 11th consecutive defeat to New York dating to Game 2 of the 2024 AL Division Series.
Weathers bounces back, silences rotation doubts
The story of the afternoon began on the mound. Just five days removed from surrendering four home runs in five innings against the Los Angeles Angels, Ryan Weathers (1-2, 3.18 ERA) delivered a response that left Aaron Boone with very few complaints.
The left-hander scattered five hits across 7 1/3 scoreless frames, walked one and struck out eight. He retired 12 consecutive Royals at one point, including four in a row via strikeout, before Angel Chivilli closed things out with 1 2/3 innings of shutout relief. Weathers threw 95 pitches, 66 for strikes.
The start was also Weathers’ first as the winning pitcher in pinstripes, which carried its own weight given that he had received zero run support as the pitcher of record in his previous five starts. He was asked afterward what it meant to finally get the win.
“It’s awesome,” Weathers said. “Every time I want to pitch, I want to win for the New York Yankees.”
Questions remain about whether Weathers keeps his rotation spot once Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole return from injury. Max Fried, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren look like rotation locks. But Sunday, Weathers made the decision harder.
Judge and Rice make history at the top of the order
The early weeks of the 2026 season have produced something Yankees fans had not expected quite so quickly: a new power duo at the top of the batting order. Aaron Judge and Ben Rice have combined for 17 home runs through 22 games, the most of any teammate pair in all of Major League Baseball.
For historical context, that figure is one more than the entire New York Mets roster (16) and four more than the Boston Red Sox (13), who the Yankees visit beginning Tuesday. The duo joins Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra (1956) and Judge himself alongside Anthony Rizzo (2022) as the only Yankees tandems to each clear eight homers in the team’s first 22 games.
The 7-0 final: how it happened
Manager Aaron Boone made a subtle but meaningful lineup adjustment before the game, slotting Rice into the leadoff spot for the first time this season ahead of Judge. It paid off immediately.
Rice drew a leadoff walk against Kansas City left-hander Cole Ragans in the bottom of the first inning, and Judge followed by hammering a first-pitch curveball 425 feet into the netting above Monument Park in center field. The two-run blast was Judge’s ninth homer of the season and his sixth in eight games. Three more walks and an Austin Wells sacrifice fly in the same inning pushed the score to 3-0.
It was also the 90th first-inning home run of Judge’s career, placing him third in Yankees franchise history behind Babe Ruth (126) and Mickey Mantle (103). Since 2024, 45 of his 120 home runs have come in the opening frame.
Rice then put the game firmly out of reach in the second inning. The 27-year-old first baseman turned on an inside fastball from Ragans and drove it into the right-field seats for his eighth homer of the season, third off a left-handed pitcher. He was hitting .338/.476/.800 on the year entering Sunday.
Rice was asked what it meant to be hitting homers in step with the Yankees captain.
“It feels good to hit some homers; I mean, he’s always going to be hitting homers,” Rice said. “So to be able to hit some along with him is cool for me.”
Ragans tied a career high by surrendering seven runs. He walked a career-high eight batters and was chased after 4 1/3 innings. The Yankees totaled just seven hits but drew 10 walks in the game.
Trent Grisham provided the finishing blow with a three-run homer to the second deck in right field in the fifth inning, capping the scoring at 7-0. It completed a 2-for-4 afternoon for Grisham, who also drew a walk in the first and singled in the sixth.
Defense seals the shutout
The shutout required one outstanding defensive play to survive. In the sixth inning, Grisham tracked down a Bobby Witt Jr. double in center field and fired a relay throw to Jose Caballero, who fired home to catcher Austin Wells. The relay nailed Elias Diaz by several steps and preserved the blank on the scoreboard.
The Yankees improved to 8-1 this season when hitting two or more home runs. Boone was asked to assess a homestand that began with pitching concerns against the Angels and ended with nine home runs against Kansas City.
“I thought we played really well, obviously, this weekend in a lot of facets,” Boone said. “You want to play clean. You want to feel like you can do different things on a given day to win a game.”
Road trip next, starting in Boston
The Yankees head into Monday’s off day tied for first place in the American League East before a nine-game road trip through Boston, Houston and Arlington. Luis Gil (0-1, 7.00 ERA) takes the mound Tuesday night at Fenway Park against Boston rookie Connelly Early. The Red Sox sit at 8-12 heading into the series.
Judge acknowledged the sweep was significant and offered some praise for the opponent his team just dismantled.
“This was a big series for us,” Judge said. “To be able to come out there and put up some big runs, especially the last two games, was huge for us.”
The Yankees enter that road stretch having won nine of their last 13 games. Their earlier struggles against lefty pitching, which produced the second-worst OPS in the majors (.535) entering the weekend, look considerably different after Judge and Rice each went deep off Ragans.
Grisham, reflecting on the team’s overall offensive firepower, put the threat level in plain terms.
“This lineup last year had five guys who hit 30 homers,” Grisham said. “That’s felt by other teams.”
Judge was equally direct about what his young teammate has become in short order.
“It’s just quality at-bat after at-bat,” Judge said. “He’s at the top of the league right now.”
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