{"id":679491,"date":"2026-04-20T00:27:32","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T00:27:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/679491\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T00:27:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T00:27:32","slug":"judge-and-rice-hit-early-homers-off-ragans-as-yankees-beat-skidding-royals-7-0-for-3-game-sweep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/679491\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge and Rice hit early homers off Ragans as Yankees beat skidding Royals 7-0 for 3-game sweep"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer in the first inning, Ben Rice went deep for the fourth straight game in the second and the New York Yankees beat the reeling Kansas City Royals 7-0 to complete a three-game sweep on Sunday following a long rain delay.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Ryan Weathers (1-2) bounced back from allowing <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/angels-yankees-score-25679d2d49d5b91b02fe0bfa7e944ac6\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">four homers to the Los Angeles Angels on Tuesday<\/a> and permitted five hits in 7 1\/3 innings for his first win with the Yankees. The left-hander struck out eight and walked one.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Trent Grisham added a three-run homer in the fifth for the Yankees, who went deep nine times in the series and won the final two games by a combined 20-4 margin after their previous five victories were decided in the final at-bat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After the start was pushed back 2 hours, 45 minutes, Judge gave New York a 2-0 lead against Cole Ragans (0-4) by belting a first-pitch curveball onto the netting above Monument Park in center field. Judge\u2019s 425-foot drive was his sixth homer in eight games and fifth in the first inning this season.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Kansas City Royals pitcher Cole Ragans throws during the first inning of a baseball game...\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/LVUIMSDLQJCUTKKTQKMF7KKHJA.jpg\" width=\"980\" height=\"653\" \/>Kansas City Royals pitcher Cole Ragans throws during the first inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees, Sunday, April 19, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo\/Seth Wenig)(Seth Wenig | AP)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rice batted leadoff for the first time this year and gave the Yankees a 4-0 lead by sending a fastball into the right-field seats for a solo shot. It was his eighth homer, one behind Judge for the team lead, and his third off a left-handed pitcher this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Judge and Rice became the third set of Yankees teammates with at least eight homers each through the first 22 games of a season. Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra did it in 1956 before Judge and Anthony Rizzo also achieved the feat in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Ragans tied a career high by allowing seven runs in 4 1\/3 innings. The left-hander also issued a career-high eight walks and allowed four hits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Kansas City lost its seventh straight and for the 10th time in 12 games. The Royals also lost their 11th consecutive game to the Yankees since Game 2 of their 2024 AL Division Series.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/royals-perez-quatraro-cecd3684e1cc6a6db940648352bf7377\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Salvador Perez<\/a> was back in Kansas City\u2019s lineup after getting a rare day off Saturday and went 0 for 4.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer in the first inning, Ben Rice went deep&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2387],"tags":[5,14,936,2123,55,2596,2595,4848,12081,4,169,3241,252],"class_list":{"0":"post-679491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-kansas-city-royals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-game","10":"tag-kansas","11":"tag-kansas-city","12":"tag-kansas-city-royals","13":"tag-kansascity","14":"tag-kansascityroyals","15":"tag-kc","16":"tag-kctv","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-recap","20":"tag-royals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116434203809580247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=679491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/679491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=679491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=679491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=679491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}