Did Yankee Stadium play host to another notable milestone on Wednesday night?
The best career 100th home run ever?
Who can even remember when others reached such a modest round number? Coming off the veteran bat of Brett Gardner, though, amidst baseball’s greatest rivalry, it couldn’t have felt much more grandiose.
“Yeah, it was a big feeling,” Gardner acknowledged after No. 100, a seventh-inning grand slam off Boston’s Ryan Brasier, catapulted the Yankees to a 5-3 victory over — and a series sweep of — the defending champions.
“Hoo, that was big,” Aaron Boone echoed.
Big, in that it wiped out six innings’ worth of frustration as the Yankees flailed against old pal Nathan Eovaldi. Big, in that it rewarded the home team for withdrawing 104 pitches out of Eovaldi in only six innings, thereby getting to the gargantuan Achilles’ heel that is the Red Sox’s bullpen. Big, in that it dropped the Red Sox to a stunningly bad 6-13.
And big, in that Gardner, the revered team leader who agreed to a pay cut in order to remain a Yankees in 2019, delivered one of the most dramatic hits of his long career.
“That’s why I’m 35 and it took me this long to get to 100,” said Gardner, who now has a .203/.301/.438 slash line on the season. “I never could have envisioned playing this long and hitting this many. Obviously I’m not a home-run hitter. I’ve just been very fortunate to be able to stay healthy and be surrounded by a lot of great teammates, a lot of great coaches to continue my game and work on my approach at the plate as I get older.”
Man, did the Yankees need that vintage Gardner, as it would have been quite the buzzkill to follow Tuesday night’s 8-0 rout with a loss.
Starting pitcher J.A. Happ hung in there after a tough beginning and provided his best start of the season, and Tommy Kahnle relieved Happ in the seventh and escaped a jam to keep the Yankees’ deficit at 3-1. Then the Red Sox lifted Eovaldi for Brandon Workman, who promptly served up a single to Clint Frazier, walked Mike Tauchman and, after a Gio Urshela strikeout, walked Austin Romine to load the bases.
In came Brasier to go after Gardner, who hadn’t notched a hit with the bases jammed since 2017 and who fell into an 0-and-2 hole. Then he smoked the third pitch, a 97 mph, navel-high fastball, over the right-field wall.
“He went slider, slider [with the first two pitches],” Gardner said.
“I didn’t think he’d throw another slider in the zone right there. I thought he might waste a pitch. But I don’t know if he was trying to come up and in with the heater, but I don’t think that’s where he was trying to put it. Thank goodness, I was ready for it.”
He conducted his postgame interview holding the milestone ball in his right hand, having completed a transaction with the young fan, “Will from Greenwich,” who swapped it in return for some photos and autographed balls.
“I’m sure my kids will appreciate it,” Gardner said. “They’ll probably be in the driveway playing catch with it tomorrow.”
Often stoic by design, Gardner didn’t try to downplay what this one meant for both the team and himself.
“Obviously the season hasn’t gotten off to a start that I would have liked for myself or the team,” he said. “So to be able to come through in a big spot like that and what was a big game for the middle of April, it felt good.”
As for that milestone?
“I told him it’s about time,” said Aaron Judge, who has 87 career homers in 4,170 fewer career plate appearances than Gardner.
Actually, it was the perfect time. And if the Yankees are truly awake now, their myriad injuries be damned, it’ll be remembered like no other century mark of its kind.
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