NEW YORK — Aaron Judge combined with Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger to go deep on the first three pitches from Nestor Cortes, then hit two more blasts as the New York Yankees set a team record with nine home runs in a 20-9 rout of the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday.
Judge hit a solo blast, his ninth career grand slam and a two-run shot in his 40th multi-home run game and third with three. He finished with a career-high eight RBIs.
He came up just short of becoming the 19th player to hit four home runs in a game when his sixth-inning fly fell on the right-field warning track for a run-scoring double. He flied out in the eighth against Jake Bauers, an outfielder and first baseman.
Goldschmidt, Bellinger and Judge homered starting the first on the unusually warm 78-degree afternoon. Major League Baseball said this was the first time a team homered on its first three pitches since tracking of pitch counts began in 1988.
Austin Wells, Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Oswald Peraza also went deep.
Traded from the Yankees in December, Cortes (0-1) gave up eight runs, six hits and five walks over two innings in his Brewers debut.
The Yankees had five errors, their most since May 29, 2018, leading to four unearned runs off Max Fried.
Making his Yankees debut after signing an eight-year $218 million, contract, Fried allowed six runs, seven hits and two walks in 4 2/3 innings. Yoendrys Gómez (1-0) got four outs for his first big league win.
J.C. Escarra, a 29-year-old former Uber driver and substitute teacher, made his major-league debut for the Yankees. He struck out in the seventh as a pinch hitter against Chad Patrick, who also was making his debut.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said designated hitter Giancarlo Stanton, sidelined by pain in both elbows, had started taking dry swings.
