A dream start to the Yankees’ season and Juan Soto’s time in The Bronx took its first wrong turn Thursday as the superstar outfielder was removed from an 8-5 win over the Twins with what the team called left forearm discomfort.
Soto’s departure overshadowed the Yankees’ season-high eighth straight win as they’ve dominated the first two-plus months of the season.
They also extended their lead in the AL East over Baltimore to 4 ½ games, their largest of the year and surpassed the idle Phillies for the best record in the majors (45-19).
And much of that has been due to the fearsome 1-2 punch of Soto and Aaron Judge.
Judge has stayed healthy and the durable Soto has played every game so far this season in his first year with the Yankees — and he didn’t miss a game all last year with the Padres.
Due to be a free agent for the first time following the season, Soto’s departure against the Twins came after a 56-minute rain delay before the top of the sixth.
He was 0-for-1 with two walks and a run scored.
Soto made five throws from right field before leaving the game and there was no obvious play where he may have suffered the injury.
Earlier in his career, Soto spent time on the IL with back spasms as well as a strained left shoulder.
He was replaced by Alex Verdugo — and Jasson Dominguez, recently moved to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in his rehab from last year’s Tommy John surgery, was pulled from his game Thursday — but that’s not unusual during his rehab assignment, and the Yankees said after the game that had nothing to do with Soto’s status.
On Tuesday, Aaron Boone said Dominguez was “very” close to being ready to play in the majors, if needed.
As for the game, the Yankees completed a season sweep of Minnesota and improved to 123-44 against their AL Central foes since 2002, including the postseason.
Tommy Kahnle found himself in trouble with two on and two out in the eighth, but Anthony Volpe made a terrific play to his right on a sharp grounder by Carlos Correa to get the force at second and preserve a three-run lead.
They also got three RBIs from little-used Trent Grisham, who was just 2-for-39 on the season coming into the game.
The offense helped overcome Marcus Stroman’s shaky performance as the right-hander allowed a season-high five runs in just 4 ²/₃ innings.
Stroman allowed a pair of solo homers in the first three innings before he was unable to finish an ugly top of the fifth, done in by two doubles and a hit by pitch.
But it didn’t matter as the Yankees pummeled Minnesota right-hander Pablo Lopez for seven runs in four innings, highlighted by Grisham’s two-run shot in the second and a three-run third sparked by Gleyber Torres’ two-run double.
Grisham, who has played sparingly since arriving with Soto in the trade with the Padres, now has three hits on the year — two of them home runs. His blast put the Yankees up, 2-1.
With the game tied at 2-2, Soto, Judge and Giancarlo Stanton walked to lead off the bottom of the third.
After Anthony Rizzo struck out, Torres bounced a chopper past first base and down the right field line for a two-run double.
Austin Wells followed with a sacrifice fly to make it 5-2.
But Stroman fell apart in the fifth.
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With runners on second and third and no one out, Carlos Correa — who’d homered earlier — drove in another run with a sacrifice fly.
Max Kepler followed by lofting a fly ball near the left field line, where Judge pulled up well in front of the fence. The ball fell in for a ground-rule double to drive in another run.
Stroman hit Jose Miranda with two out to end his outing and Carlos Santana had an RBI single to right off Victor Gonzalez to make it 7-5.
A sacrifice fly in the bottom of the inning by Grisham gave the Yankees an 8-5 lead before five Yankee relievers combined to throw 5 ¹/₃ shutout innings to finish the win.