The New York Yankees heard the chatter. On Sunday, they answered in their own, unique way. Amid growing league-wide curiosity and criticism over the team’s use of uniquely designed “torpedo” bats, the Yankees stepped into the box and kept mashing. The Yankees launched four more home runs in Sunday’s series finale against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Aaron Judge, who does not use the Yankees’ new bats, hit his fourth home run in two games. Rookie Ben Rice added his first long ball of the season. Jazz Chisholm Jr., who uses one of the now heavily discussed torpedo bats, went deep twice. If there were any questions about whether the torpedo bats were a one-day story, the Yankees just gave them another day’s worth of headlines.
The bats, engineered to redistribute mass closer to the hitter’s hands for improved bat speed and barrel consistency, were first brought into the spotlight after Saturday’s 20–9 offensive explosion. They have been in use since before last season, according to reports. Brewers closer Trevor Megill, however, compared them to bowling ball pins and suggested they gave the Yankees an unfair advantage. Major League Baseball has confirmed repeatedly that the bats are legal, but the discussion didn’t die down. It only intensified.
Position players around the league, like Brewers first baseman Rhys Hoskins, have expressed curiosity. Coaches like Milwaukee’s Pat Murphy have praised the innovation. But for the Yankees, the approach hasn’t changed: take good swings, control the zone, and let it rip.
These Yankees torpedo bats are more like heat-seeking missiles, which remained blistering hot on Sunday afternoon in the Bronx. Just one day after hitting a franchise-record nine round-trippers in a 20-9 victory, the Bronx Bombers hit another four home runs in their 12-3 victory to complete an opening weekend series sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers.
Jazz Chisholm hit two home runs, including a three-run shot in the seventh inning, and Aaron Judge hit his fourth in the last two games and also went deep in the win. Ben Rice added his first of the season to become the eighth Yankee already this season to hit a homer. With it, the Yankees (3-0) tied the MLB record set by the 2006 Detroit Tigers with 15 home runs hit in the first three games of a season.
The Bronx Bombers also became one of nine teams in MLB history to hit 13 or more home runs in any two-game stretch — the fifth time in franchise history they have done that (1939, 2007, 2020 twice). The 1999 Cincinnati Reds hold the record with 14.
“The thing I felt best about coming out of spring training is the amount all those guys were able to get what I felt was the right amount of playing time, good amount of at-bats,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I felt most of the guys were in a pretty good place with their swings… they’ve done a really good job of executing the gameplan.”
You’re not always going to have games like this, but I like the approach and the frame of mind every day. The assault began early, as has already become the theme in 2025. In the bottom of the first, following a lead-off Paul Goldschmidt single, Judge took Brewers starter Aaron Civale’s 3-2 fastball toward the bottom of the zone 410 feet into the left-field seats to give the Yankees a 2-1 lead.
It was Judge’s fourth home run in his last seven at-bats, which made him the first slugger in team history to record four or more round-trippers in his first three games of a season. “With Aaron, you can never put a ceiling on what’s possible with what he can do,” Boone said of the reigning AL MVP. “It’s good to see him have a really great first series.”
Rice made it 3-1 when he jumped on a hanging sinker from Civale, turning on it and sending it 383 feet into the second deck in right field for his first home run of the season. Chisholm hit the Yankees’ third home run in as many innings — and their 12th in their last 12 innings — to make the Brewers pay for intentionally walking Judge and make it a 5-1 game.
The left-handed second baseman took advantage of the short porch in right, lining a screaming 109-mph line drive just over the wall. “We have a whole team of superstars, not just one superstar,” Chisholm told YES Network. “…You walk one, we’re going to take advantage of it.”
Civale’s day was done after the third, ending with five earned runs on four hits — three of them leaving the yard. Jake Bauers answered with a wall-scraper of his own in the top of the fourth, lining a 108.7-mph liner 331 feet off the right-field foul pole to cut the Brewers’ hole to 5-3 off Yankees starter Marcus Stroman, who was yanked with two outs in the frame and just one short of registering the win.
The veteran righty, who the Yankees attempted to trade all winter, allowed five hits with three strikeouts and a walk to go with the three earned runs. The Yankees re-opened their lead with two in the bottom of the sixth. A wild pitch from Brewers reliever Jared Koenigin scored Judge from third before an Austin Wells groundout scored Chisholm.
They added another five in the seventh, headlined by the three-run home run by Chisholm that he snuck inside the right-field foul pole for his second of the day. It answered an RBI single from Goldschmidt and a sacrifice fly by Cody Bellinger. With the game already out of hand, the Brewers turned to Bauers — the first baseman who pitched a scoreless inning on Saturday — to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning. While the Yankees loaded the bases, they did not score a run.
As reporters asked various Yankees hitters whether they were into the torpedo bats some members of the team have been using, Aaron Judge questioned why he would bother. “Why try to change something if you’ve got something that’s working?” the reigning American League MVP, fresh off the third three-homer game of his career, countered on Sunday morning.
Judge, using a traditional bat, then swatted his fourth home run in the last 24 hours in the first frame of Sunday’s series finale against Milwaukee. The two-run blast off Aaron Civale erased a 1-0 Brewers lead after Sal Frelick picked up an RBI single in the top of the inning. It also kicked off another bludgeoning, as the Yankees won the game, 12-3, and swept the series.
Judge is now the first player in Yankees history to hit at least four homers in the team’s first three games of the season, per Stathead’s Katie Sharp. Judge also became the second player in MLB history with at least four homers and 11 RBI in his team’s first three games, per Sharp. The other was Dolph Camilli of the 1935 Phillies.
With the season’s first series out of the way and the Yankees off to a 3-0 start, they’ll take a breather on Monday. A three-game set with the Diamondbacks begins in the Bronx on Tuesday. Will Warren, Carlos Rodón, and Carlos Carrasco are lined up to pitch for the Yankees. Corbin Burnes is set to pitch the opener for Arizona, followed by Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly.
