Juan Soto leads Yankees home run barrage to salvage series with Rays

The New York Yankees managed to salvage a four-game series against the Tampa Bay Rays with a 9-1 win at Yankee Stadium on Monday.

In the first series coming out of the All-Star break, the Yankees came out hot with a 6-1 win to open the four-game set. However, they went on to drop the Saturday and Sunday games, 9-1 and 6-4, respectively.

The Yankees got a fantastic outing from Carlos Rodon, who threw 7.0 innings of one-run ball allowing two hits and two walks while striking out a season-high 10 batters.

Rodon went back to leaning on his fastball, throwing it 54% of the time while mixing in his slider (20%), curveball (16%) and changeup (10%).

He generated 16 swings-and-misses and allowed a 90.9 average exit velocity. Rays hitters were 0-for-8 with a walk and seven strikeouts against his slider.

The Yankees finally realized players other than Aaron Judge are allowed to hit home runs. They used the long ball to their advantage on Monday, going deep four times.

Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells got the party started going back-to-back with solo home runs in the bottom of the second inning to give the Yankees an early 2-0 lead.

Oswaldo Cabrera snuck a two-run single through the right side in the bottom of the fourth inning while D.J. LeMahieu hit his first home run of the season in the bottom of the fifth inning to put the Yankees up 5-0.

Juan Soto put the icing on the cake with an absolute monster shot to right field in the bottom of the seventh inning that almost reached the upper deck.

That wasn't enough for Soto, though, as he added a three-run homer over the short porch in the top of the ninth inning.

Judge was 2-for-5 while Wells, from the four-hole, had a three-hit day.

The Yankees salvaged this series and will host the New York Mets for the second, two-game Subway Series on Tuesday night.