– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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NEW YORK — Anthony Rizzo continued to grab the Tigers by their tails.
One night after hitting a walk-off single in the ninth inning, Rizzo cracked a three-run home run to cap a four-run third inning to help lead the Yankees to a 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers on Saturday afternoon in Yankee Stadium. Starting pitcher Clarke Schmidt struck out seven in his five innings of work while the three Yankees relievers closed the door by putting up four scoreless innings to close out the game, recording seven strikeouts of the 12 outs that completed the contest.
On Monday, Rizzo was named American League Player of the Week after batting .407, with four of his 11 hits leaving the yard. He went deep again in the third inning, with the score tied at 1-1, after the first three Yankee hitters reached base. Anthony Volpe walked before Juan Soto singled to right to set up runners on first and third. Aaron Judge followed with a soft double down the left field line to score Volpe to give New York its first lead.
Tigers starter Casey Mize then got Alex Verdugo to ground out and then struck out Giancarlo Stanton swinging to get one step away from escaping the jam without further damage. But Rizzo lifted a 1-1 fastball from Mize deep into the bleachers in right for his sixth homer of the season.
For the second consecutive outing, Schmidt allowed a leadoff home run, with the Tigers’ Riley Greene taking the Yankees starter deep after Baltimore’s Gunnar Henderson did the same last Monday in a Yankees loss to the Orioles. And once again, Schmidt battled and came through with another respectable start after the inauspicious beginning. Since the start of last season, Schmidt has 32 starts of allowing three runs or fewer, trailing only the St. Louis Cardinals’ Sonny Gray for the most such starts in that span.
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