Key takeaways from the 6-3 loss to the Phillies

The Yankees dropped both games in a split series on Saturday afternoon. After losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates 3-0 and the Philadelphia Phillies 6-3, the Bombers walked away with more negatives than positives. However, the main scores against Philadelphia range from a few notable pitches to several offensive contributions.

The Yankees have had a few notable hitters:

Starting with the Yankees offense, they scored only four hits and struck out 12 times via 31 at-bats. DJ LeMahieu worked a walk and hit it across two at bats, striking out once. The two big actors come in the form of Giancarlo Stanton and Jason Dominguez.

Stanton has posted two songs, having struggled this spring to get going. He only got one hit this game, so it was nice to see Stanton find his groove and see the ball more efficiently.

Once again stealing the show, Dominguez hit a home run to right field in the bottom of the fifth inning, driving in Ben Rice, one of the Yankees’ backup catchers.

Dominguez is now hitting . 421 with a . 500 OBP and a 1.053 slugging percentage. There is a strong case for Dominguez to be in the conversation to be called up to Triple-A, even though he played only a handful of games with Double-A Somerset last year. Indeed, manager Aaron Bunn has praised Dominguez and suggested he could be promoted sooner rather than later.

Dominguez now has four homers this spring and has looked comfortable on the field, so he’s moving closer to a major league appearance at the end of the 2023 season.

As for the team’s pitching, Domingo German enjoyed 2.1 innings of action, giving up three hits and two earned runs. He runs three strikeouts, hosting a 3.52 ERA this spring. The German has had his fair share of ups and downs but has performed well enough with just a few weeks leading up to Opening Day. Given that Carlos Rodon and Frankie Montas will start the season on the injured list, the German will have to play a big role for at least the first few weeks of the regular season.

The bullpen did well, aside from an unfortunate outing by Matt Crook. Management was excited about Kroc and his stuff, but he gave up six hits, and three earned runs across 3.0 innings to close out the game. He managed to knock out four players in the process.

However, it would have been nice to see Michael King get another chance, get out of the batter and put together a very clean inning of the action. King appears to be in shape to start the regular season, having recovered from last year’s Tommy John surgery.

The Yankees will be looking forward to Sunday afternoon as they prepare to take on the Boston Red Sox at 1:05 p.m.