Yankees.com: Fans shower boos on Soto, then Yankees’ Plan B outshines him

From Bryan Hoch:

It may well be that Friday’s Subway Series opener is remembered for the vitriolic boos that rained upon Juan Soto for most of the evening, especially during his first Yankee Stadium at-bat since last year’s World Series, a moment marked by a sarcastic batting helmet doff that served to pour gasoline onto the fire.

No matter the final score, Soto’s Bronx return would be the most prominent storyline, a superstar switching boroughs to accept a record-shattering 15-year, $765 million contract. But Soto’s exit pushed the Yankees to swiftly adopt a Plan B, including pickups of Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger, both of whom contributed in a 6-2 victory over the Mets.

“That was really fun to be a part of,” Bellinger said. “It was loud. The stadium was full. Really, any Friday night, Yankee Stadium has been really fun to be a part of. But this was obviously just full of energy.”

Goldschmidt stroked two hits, drove in two runs and made a sparkling over-the-shoulder catch on the run far from his first base position, while Bellinger banged three hits while scoring two runs. It marked the Subway Series debut for both veterans.

Absolutely no offense to Paul Goldschmidt, who certainly seems to be enjoying himself here, but boy, Cody Bellinger REALLY seems like he loves being a Yankee. Don’t get me wrong, a LOT of dudes really love being Yankees, since being a Yankee is fucking awesome, but Bellinger is still a bit of an outlier in HOW much he embraces it. Of the Yankees’ recent additions to the team, I think only Jazz Chisholm has embraced being a Yankee more than Bellinger.

You could easily argue that the more reserved reaction of Goldschmidt is the SMARTER way to approach things (especially since Bellinger might not even BE a Yankee past this season), but I just found it interesting.

Okay, as to the game, it was the kind of offensive performance you would hope for from the Yankees, with them just being an unrelenting offense. No one was giving away at-bats. They just grinded their way to a 6-1 lead and, okay, then they started to give away at-bats, but not BEFORE that, at least!

Jonathan Loaisiga returned, and looked good. Devin Williams had a dominant eighth, and got to exorcise a TEENSY bit of his demons by striking out Pete Alonso on three pitches, the first of three straight Ks for Williams (he has obviously been SO MUCH fucking better since his demotion. He’s legit becoming a late inning weapon again. The interesting question is whether you consider giving him his closer job back if he keeps this up. I would tend towards NOT doing that, and just keeping him and Cruz as the late inning guys ahead of Weaver. Weaver has been so good, why fuck with what’s been working?), and then Yerry de Los Santos had an awful ninth inning (enter the game up 6-1, how in the fuck are you walking MULTIPLE guys at the BACK of the order?!?), but Weaver came in and got Juan Soto to end the game.

I went with the Soto out as the featured image because, while Rodon’s outing was probably JUST good enough to merit a featured image, A. it wasn’t obviously so (he only pitched 5 innings) and, more importantly, B. Juan Soto made the last out in his first game back against the Yankees, how do I NOT spotlight that?

I was at the game last night with my family. My sister-in-law’s family has had season tickets since the 1970s. For years, it was first row on the third baseline. Those seats didn’t exist in the new Stadium, so they were forced to move to first row of left field, and look how TALL the extra nonsense is there! My wife and I spent an inning in the seats (mostly, we all just hung out together outside the seating area, as modern stadiums really are built for watching the game standing near the vendors), and I took a photo to show the weird setup.