Yankees takeaways from Sunday's 6-0 win over Giants, including power hitting and stellar pitching

Power and pitching propelled the Yankees to a 6-0 victory over the San Francisco Giants on Sunday afternoon as Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and Kyle Higashioka homered and Jhony Brito threw five scoreless innings in his MLB debut.

The Yankees improved to 29-2 in games in which both Judge and Stanton hit home runs. That total includes postseason games.

Brito, who is in the starting rotation because the Yankees have three starters down with injuries, was tremendous in front of 42,053 at Yankee Stadium. The 25-year-old righty, who was signed by the Yankees as a non-drafted free agent back in 2015, allowed only two hits and was never really in trouble.

The Yankees took two-out-of-three from San Francisco in their opening series of the season.

Here are some key takeaways...

- The Yankee power show cranked up in the third inning. With one out, Judge slammed a 1-0 pitch on a line over the left-field wall for his second homer of the season and a 1-0 Yanks lead. After Anthony Rizzo singled, Stanton hit a ball where maybe no one has before. His prodigious drive to center soared over the batter’s eye below the giant scoreboard, well back of the center-field fence.

The blast was measured at 485 feet and left Stanton’s bat at a robust 117.8 miles per hour. It was his second homer of the season and lifted the Yanks' lead to 3-0. According to Sarah Langs of MLB.com, it was the second-longest home run Stanton has hit in the Statcast Era (since 2015). He hit a 504-foot homer at Colorado’s Coors Field on Aug. 6, 2016. It was also the eighth homer of Stanton’s career that went at least 480 feet, according to ESPN Stats and Info.

- Judge’s homer was the 222nd of his career, tying him with Don Mattingly for 11th on the Yankees career leaderboard.

- Leading off the bottom of the fourth inning, Higashioka, starting for the first time this season, blasted his first homer, a high drive that traveled over the left-field fence and gave the Yanks a 4-0 lead.

- Brito, who wowed the Yankees with a strong spring training, including a final start in which he retired all 16 Blue Jays he faced, was impressive. Sporting jersey No. 76, he allowed just two harmless singles and struck out six and walked one. His high-80s changeup looks like it could be a significant weapon and he used it to generate strikeouts. Brito got his first career strikeout against the first batter he faced, fanning Lamonte Wade, Jr. with a change. With one out in the second inning, Brito started a streak in which he struck out five consecutive Giants, finishing them all with changeups. All six of his strikeouts on the afternoon were swinging.

- In the seventh inning, the Yanks scored two more runs without getting a hit. Three walks, two stolen bases, a sac fly and three wild pitches by Sean Hjelle, the 6-foot-11 Giants pitcher who is tied with Jon Rauch as the tallest pitcher in MLB history, did the trick.

- Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who is transitioning from being the starting shortstop last year to a utility role, made his MLB debut in center field in the game and handled three fly balls flawlessly. IKF says he understands his new role.

“There’s two great shortstop prospects and I want to help the team,” he said, referring to Anthony Volpe, now the starter, and Oswald Peraza. “Being an older guy, I definitely saw that. I wanted to give myself an opportunity to stick on the team.”

Asked what he likes about playing the outfield, IKF replied, “I just like how you just run balls down, the freedom of not having to do something perfect. You just have to make the play. I think the last year, playing shortstop, I'd get caught up in trying to be too perfect and caring about how I looked instead of finishing the play. Out (in center-field) the only thing that matters is catching the ball and making a good throw. I think that freedom is going to allow me to have some success."

Said Aaron Boone: “He very much looked the part (in spring work). Now it’s about doing it. Skill-wise, he has the ability to do it and do it well.”

- Volpe stole his third base in as many games this season. The only other player to steal a base in each of his first three games with the Yankees was Fritz Maisel, who did it in his first three career games in 1913. Volpe is also only the fifth player in MLB since 1901 to accomplish the feat, according to MLB.com.

- With DJ LeMahieu getting a day off, Gleyber Torres was the leadoff hitter and went 1-for-3 with a walk, a steal and a run scored. Boone said he considered using Volpe at leadoff, though batting him ninth, at least early in the season, will allow the rookie to settle in. To be clear, Volpe, or anyone else, would bat leadoff only on days LeMahieu is off. “I expect DJ to be in there most days,” Boone said.

Highlights

What's next

The Yankees stay in the Bronx and host the Philadelphia Phillies in a three-game series, beginning on Monday at 7:05 p.m.

Nestor Cortes will make his season debut against Taijuan Walker.