NEW YORK — The sell-out crowd of 48,788 had barely settled into their seats when the vibe in the Bronx shifted. Then Aaron Judge stepped to the plate, and everything changed.
The Yankees’ first home game of the 2026 season had all the makings of a celebration. Fans arrived in winter jackets but peeled them off when the sun broke through. The energy was loud, the anticipation high. Then Miami’s Xavier Edwards silenced it with a leadoff home run off starter Will Warren in the top of the first inning.
For a team riding a strong 5-1 road trip through San Francisco and Seattle, a moment of early turbulence in front of the home crowd was the last thing the Yankees needed. But their captain had other plans.
Judge answers back with towering shot in first at-bat
Trent Grisham led off the bottom of the first with a walk. That brought Judge to the plate with a .105 batting average through six games, facing hard-throwing right-hander Eury Perez.
Perez fired a 97.9-mph fastball. Judge fouled it off. Then came a sweeper low and outside, which Judge laid off. Then Perez hung a middle-in sweeper.
The ball soared 387-foot deep to left field for a two-run homer, his third of the season, instantly flipping the scoreboard to 2-1 Yankees. The Bronx erupted.
“The biggest thing was just answering back,” Judge said. “They came out swinging, got a run on us. Grisham had a great at-bat in front of me, and I’m just trying to do my job, which is try to get him over, or if you get a good pitch, to drive it. I’m just happy we could answer back to get a 2-1 lead.”
Scare in the second: Judge takes fastball near the wrist
The mood quickly turned tense one inning later. With the bases loaded in the second, Perez drilled Judge near the right wrist with a 98.9-mph fastball. Judge grimaced, grabbed his arm, and every eye in Yankee Stadium locked on the dugout.
“I’ve broken my wrist like that,” Judge said. “That’s always your main concern.”
“I tend to jump up a little quicker when it’s to him,” Boone admitted. “Fortunately, I think he got him off the forearm, kind of the meaty part of things. I knew in short order we’re all right.”
Judge was fine. He stayed in all nine innings and finished the day 2-for-3 with three RBI, two walks, a stolen base and the hit by pitch. It was his first multi-hit game of 2026 after going 3-for-24 with 11 strikeouts on the road trip.
Yankees work walks, steal bases to pile it on
The Yankees walked 11 times on the afternoon. The second inning alone featured three stolen bases from Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Jose Caballero combined. Perez issued four walks in the frame, including one to Grisham with the bases loaded that forced in a run. Then came the Judge plunking for another RBI.
“Perez is really good, and we made him work,” Boone said. “We were able to manufacture a couple of runs. We got the running game going a little bit. But it was our patience today that really served us well.”
The Yankees led 4-2 after two innings. From there, they added one in the sixth, one in the seventh and two in the eighth to reach the final margin.
Rice provides the knockout blow with homer and double
First baseman Ben Rice struck out in his first three at-bats. It did not rattle him.
Rice went 353-foot deep to the short porch in right for a solo shot in the seventh. Then, he came through with the Yankees’ first hit with runners in scoring position, a two-run double in the eighth that put the game away.
“Something I always tell myself is I want that next AB,” Rice said. “I want the fourth, I want the fifth.”
Warren and bullpen hold Marlins in check
Will Warren allowed two solo home runs but was otherwise untouchable, retiring 12 consecutive batters between the Edwards blast and a later Owen Caissie shot. He went 5.2 innings, struck out six and issued no walks to improve to 1-0 with a 2.70 ERA.
“Solo homers aren’t going to beat us,” Warren said. “I think if we attack early, the odds are in our favor.”
Tim Hill, Jake Bird, Brent Headrick and Ryan Yarbrough combined for 3.1 perfect innings, striking out four. Through seven games, Yankees pitchers have allowed just eight total runs, an average of 1.1 per game. Starters have allowed two or fewer runs in each of the first seven starts, a mark the Yankees last achieved in 1911.
“Clean baseball and great starting pitching,” Judge said. “It’s a pretty easy recipe right there when you’ve got those two things working for you.”
Yankees match one of their best starts in franchise history
With the win, the Yankees moved to 6-1. That matches their second-best start through seven decisions in franchise history, behind only the 7-0 start in 1933. They also went 6-1 in the first seven in 2024.
The run-it-back Yankees used only returning players: nine hitters and five pitchers, all of whom wore pinstripes last season. The blueprint is the same. The execution has been sharper.
“It’s early, but you love the fact that you get off to this kind of start,” Boone said. “Because wins are precious.”
Cody Bellinger put an exclamation point on the afternoon. In the ninth, he sprinted back on a deep drive, appeared to drop it off the heel of his glove, then stabbed backward on the backhand to snag it anyway.
“I should’ve caught it the first time,” Bellinger said with a smile.
Judge sets tone with text before first pitch
The tone for the home opener was set before the Yankees took the field. On Thursday night, Judge sent a group text to his teammates: wear suits to the ballpark.
“He sent us a text late last night, saying suits tomorrow,” Rice said. “Everybody was fired up.”
They showed up dressed sharp and played sharper. The Yankees return Saturday night with left-hander Ryan Weathers on the mound against Miami’s Max Meyer.
“Wow, the crowd was electric from intros,” Judge said. “The weather was great. We were kind of freezing our butts off in Seattle a little bit, but it was good to come home. Yeah, you can’t script it much better than that.”
A digital technocrat-turned-baseball buff, Sara is an ardent follower of the New York Yankees. Born and brought up in New York City, she is a regular to games since she was a kid. Despite working as media strategist, baseball is her first love. She has been covering baseball games in the city as well as MLB and MiLB games involving the Yankees, the Mets, and their minor affiliates as a freelancer for different web and media publications. She works as a lead author for the Yankees-centered PinstripesNation since its very inception.
