Another night, another smackdown.
The Yankees pounded the Twins with four homers and CC Sabathia kept Minnesota off-balance all night in another rout in The Bronx on Tuesday, this one an 8-3 Yankee win.
It was the Yankees’ fourth straight victory and fifth in six games. In the four wins, the Yankees have outscored their opponents 36-6.
Sabathia showed again he is capable of pitching very effectively despite a loss of velocity. He gave up just an unearned run on two hits over six innings, sending Minnesota to a fourth consecutive loss.
Gary Sanchez homered twice and Didi Gregorius and Aaron Judge also went deep, as the Yankees knocked out Minnesota’s promising right-hander Jose Berrios in the fifth inning.
The only drama came in the seventh, courtesy of another calamitous outing by Dellin Betances.
Entering a 5-1 game, the struggling right-hander issued a leadoff walk and made an error on a pickoff attempt to help set up the Twins’ second run. It was one of four errors committed by the Yankees.
After Betances got just one out, David Robertson came on to finish the seventh.
Homers by Judge and Sanchez in the bottom of the inning gave the Yankees some insurance.
The most important performance came from Sabathia in his second outing since being sidelined with a strained hip.
“He’s continuing to make that transition to this stage of his career, where he was a dominant power pitcher for so long, now we’ve seen him have success pitching with less stuff,” manager Aaron Boone said before the game. “He’s just got a real good feel for pitching and the ability to repeat [his delivery]. You add it all up and that’s why he’s still successful this deep into his career.”
With two outs and no one on in the top of the first, Sabathia walked Miguel Sano before Eduardo Escobar ripped a double into the right-field corner, where Judge mishandled the ball off the wall, allowing Sano to score and Escobar to reach third.
Sabathia got Eddie Rosario to ground to first to get out of the inning with just the unearned run having scored. The lefty needed 23 pitches in the first after throwing 71 total in his previous outing.
He bounced back with an easy second and retired eight straight.
After Berrios whiffed Giancarlo Stanton to start the bottom of the second for his third straight strikeout, Sanchez tied the game with a homer to right. It was Sanchez’s first home run since he hit a pair at Fenway Park on April 11.
Berrios had made four starts prior to Tuesday and pitched at least seven innings without giving up a run in three of them, but the Yankees scored against him in every inning after the first.
In the third, Brett Gardner drew a one-out walk and Judge rocketed a double that one-hopped the wall in left, sending Gardner to third. Gregorius flared a single to left to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead. Stanton followed by striking out on three pitches, drawing his first boos of the night after he reached base five times on Monday. Sanchez grounded to short to end the inning.
Sabathia gave up a single with one out in the fourth — a liner up the middle by Escobar — but he was erased when Sanchez threw him out trying to steal second, thanks to a nice play by Gleyber Torres applying the tag.
Torres drove in his first run with a single in the fourth.
The Yankees knocked Berrios out an inning later when Judge led off with a hit and Gregorius crushed his eighth homer of the year to right. It was Berrios’ shortest outing of the season.
In the seventh, Betances walked two and allowed a single — and Sanchez made a throwing error — as the Twins got to within 5-2 before Betances was pulled, leaving to another round of boos.