MEXICO CITY — Hours before the Yankees faced Diablos Rojos del Mexico in an exhibition game Sunday, manager Aaron Boone had to answer why his club didn’t call up all of its star players. .
The Yankees had Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Volpe, Jose Trevino, and Oswaldo Cabrera, as well as relievers Victor Gonzalez and Jonathan Loaisiga.
But for a variety of reasons, including Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Alex Verdugo and the entire rotation, they ended up staying in Tampa to finish spring training.
But hours later, even before the first pitch had been thrown, the atmosphere inside the Estadio Alfredo Harp Helu took the game to another level.
The Diablos Rojos’ 4-3 victory over the Yankees was a three-hour party filled with non-stop chants, horns, music and a sold-out crowd of 20,735, as the Yankees lost their first place in the Grapefruit League. It was a miniaturization of what I experienced there.
“The atmosphere was above all [I expected]” Volpe said after the game.
“It was really cool there,” Stanton added. He is an avid traveler and was one of the supporters of Bad Bunny’s performance in Mexico City after seeing a Bad Bunny concert two years ago at a soccer stadium that had a “crazy” atmosphere. Before.
The Yankees’ first game in Mexico since 1968, when Mickey Mantle’s roster faced the Diablos Rojos, came at less-than-ideal timing, just days from Opening Day, with most of the shaky roster He ended up returning to Tampa to finish the game. spring training.
But those who did make the trip enjoyed the environment, even if they felt the effects of playing at high altitude (although they were kept in humidors to compensate for the thin air). So the ball didn’t fly).
“What an amazing experience it was,” Boone said. “Being able to experience baseball in this environment has a lot of energy and is a lot of fun.”
“It didn’t feel like a spring training game,” Trevino said. “It felt like a game.”
Trevor Bauer, who hasn’t pitched in MLB since receiving a 194-game suspension for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy, started for the Diablos Rojos and pitched three shutout innings.
However, the former Yankees second baseman went 3-for-4 with his new team, had a double and two RBIs, making it what Boone called the “Robinson Cano Show.”
The 41-year-old Cano spent much of Sunday’s pregame catching up with Yankees officials (he said several times he was thinking about the “good old days”), then spoke with his former teammate and Hall of Fame closer. He caught the ceremonial first pitch from Mariano Rivera.
Cano hasn’t appeared in the majors since 2022, a year after he was suspended 162 games for a second violation of MLB’s performance-enhancing drug rule, splitting playing time between the Mets, Padres and Braves. do not have.
But the left-handed slugger’s reason for continuing to play was simple.
“Because I love baseball,” he said. “Sometimes people don’t understand that. It’s easy to say to someone, ‘Just retire.’ But as long as I can do that and I can play and I can be on the field, I think I can do it. ”
As for Bauer, he said the opportunity to pitch against the Yankees played a part in his decision to sign with the Diablos Rojos, and he will spend at least the next month pitching for it.
He has offered to sign with an MLB team at the league minimum, but no one has signed him yet.
“I don’t know what the future holds,” said Bauer, who pitched in Japan last season. “I know I like to play baseball. I wanted to play. I love international baseball. I don’t mind being here. I don’t mind playing in Japan. I want to play in the big leagues again. …Let’s take a look.”
