Aaron Judge homered for a career-high fourth straight game, Gio Urshela hit his first career grand slam and the New York Yankees continued their hot start to the abbreviated season with a 5-2 victory over the visiting Boston Red Sox on Saturday night.
The Yankees won their fifth straight thanks to the early power by Judge and Urshela and now have 14 homers in their first seven games while getting off to a 6-1 start.
Judge opened the scoring with a 455-foot drive when he slugged a 2-2 breaking ball over the left-center field fence with one out in the first off Zack Godley (0-1).
After the Yankees started the second with three straight singles, Urshela lifted the first pitch, a changeup, off the top of the center field fence and onto the netting in Monument Park just past the attempted leap by Boston center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr.
Mike Tauchman added three hits and stole two of New York's three bases.
Xander Bogaerts hit a two-run double off Masahiro Tanaka as Boston lost for the 10th time in its last 11 games at Yankee Stadium, including the fifth straight.
Tanaka returned from a mild concussion -- sustained when he was struck by a line drive by Giancarlo Stanton on July 4 -- and allowed two runs on three hits in 2 2/3 innings. He struck out three, walked one, threw 51 pitches and was lifted after Bogaerts doubled.
Nick Nelson (1-0) struck out four in three hitless innings in his major league debut and was awarded the win by the official scorer. David Hale pitched two scoreless innings and posted his third career save.
Hale got three groundouts in the eighth and put two on in the ninth before finishing off his third career save. Hale was one strike away but walked Bradley and then gave up a single to Tzu-Wei Lin but finished it off by fanning Andrew Benintendi.
Inserted into Boston's rotation after tossing four scoreless innings against the New York Mets on Monday, Godley allowed five runs on six hits in 3 1/3 innings. He struck out one and walked two while throwing 69 pitches.
--Field Level Media
