Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto homer, Nestor Cortes tosses eight scoreless in Yankees' 7-0 win over Marlins

Anthony Volpe and Juan Soto continued their hot starts at the plate by smacking three-run home runs in the fourth inning and Nestor Cortes cruised through seven scoreless innings as the Yankees dismissed the Miami Marlins 7-0 on Monday night in the Bronx.

With the win the Yanks, with the best record in baseball, improved to 9-2 on the year. The Marlins fell to 1-10, the league's worst record.

Here are the takeaways...

- Marlins starter Jesus Luzardo put two on with two outs in the second after issuing back-to-back walks, but Jose Trevino, who entered the night with just one hit in 13 at-bats, popped out to shallow right to end the Yanks’ first scoring threat.

Things fell apart for Luzardo in the third starting with Giancarlo Stanton ripping a 116 mph single to left and then going first to third on a chopper from Anthony Rizzo (just 86.7 mph off the bat) that managed to bounce over the head of first baseman Jake Burger.

And Volpe delivered smashing a three-run homer to left field, knocking a 1-2 slider 388 feet (102.2 mph) for his second dinger of the season. Volpe ended the night 1-for-3 with a walk and two strikeouts looking on pitches that appeared to be out of the strike zone.

Alex Verdugo doubled down the line in left and Trevino walked, and with two outs and runners on second and third, Soto clobbered the second three-run shot of the inning (384 feet, 107.7 mph) to give the Yanks a 6-0 lead. Soto, who doubled the opposite way his second time up, would finish the night 2-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.

- Cortes worked a quick one-two-three first with three flyouts going to left field, center and then right to end frame on 14 pitches. He would need just a dozen pitches to close the book on the second, collecting his first two strikeouts of the night, and 10 pitches to complete the third.

Bryan De La Cruz broke the deadlock for the Marlins by poking a single to right after Cortes retired 10 straight to start the game. But the Yanks lefty picked right up where he left off and retired the next eight straight Marlins before De La Cruz knocked his second single of the game to start the top half of the seventh.

Cortes pitched to contact all night – getting 15 whiffs (on 56 swings) and 14 called strikes 28 percent of pitches – but only allowed three balls in play with exit velocities over 95 mph (and all three were outs).

His final line in his third start of the season: 8.0 innings, two hits, no runs, no walks and six strikeouts on 102 pitches (70 strikes) lowering his ERA to 3.50 on the year. He had first-pitch strikes to 18 of the 26 batters he faced.

- Stanton leadoff of the fifth ripping a double past the third baseman for his second hit of the night. After starting the season 3-for-24, he is heating up and after going 2-for-4 on Monday, he now had six hits in his last 12 at-bats with a double and two home runs over his last three games.

Verdugo would knock in Stanton with a two-out single up the middle. The left fielder entered the night with just five hits in his first 35 at-bats (and in a 2-for-20 skid) but collected his first multi-hit game in pinstripes to finish 3-for-3 with a walk.

- On the defensive side of things, Volpe made a fine sliding catch in the second on a hard-hit liner by Tim Anderson and the 2023 AL Gold Glove winner made an even better play for the first out of the third on a sliding, back-handed stop and throw across the diamond in the deep hole toward third.

- The Yankees and Marlins entered Monday’s game first and second in grounding into double plays; and, in the first, Aaron Judge tapped into an inning-ending 6-3 twin killing for the Yanks’ 15th on the year. Judge finished 0-for-4 and saw his average dip to .175 on the year (7-for-40).

- Josh Maciejewski, called up before the game on Monday, needed just four pitches to pitch a scoreless ninth in his major league debut.

Highlights

Upcoming schedule

These two sides face off again Tuesday evening with left-hander Carlos Rodon (0-0, 2.79 ERA) going against fellow southpaw AJ Puk (0-2, 9.00 ERA).

First pitch is set for 7:05 p.m. for the second-straight battle of the lefties at Yankee Stadium.