WATCH: Aaron Judge hits three home runs as Yankees smash a franchise-record nine homers vs. Brewers

The New York Yankees on Saturday became the first MLB team to homer on each of the first three pitches of a game. They did so at the expense of former Yankee Nestor Cortes, who made the start for the visiting Milwaukee Brewers. In all, Yankee hitters ambushed Cortes for four first-inning homers as he returned to the Bronx following an offseason three-player trade that sent him to the Brewers in exchange for closer Devin Williams. That was all prelude to even more power from the Yankees, as they wound up setting a franchise record with nine home runs for the game en route to a 20-9 win that pushed the Yankees to 2-0 on the young season and dropped the Brewers to 0-2. 

The first three of the opening frame, as noted, came in back-to-back-to-back fashion -- the first time in franchise history that the Yankees have hit three straight homers to start a game -- by Paul Goldschmidt, Cody Bellinger, and Aaron Judge. Goldschmidt and Bellinger, new to the Yankees this season, punished fastballs from Cortes, while Judge sent a cutter 468 feet to left. Here's a look at those three opening pitches from Cortes: 

Goldschmidt, who began the ritual abuse of Cortes, was batting leadoff for the first time in his 15-year MLB career. 

Later in the frame, Yanks catcher Tyler Wells, who caught 22 of Cortes' 30 starts last season, made it four homers for the hosts in the bottom of the first: 

Cortes also issued two walks in the inning but managed to avoid further indignities by getting a ground-out and a pair of called strikeouts among and after all the longballs. The Brewers clawed back three runs in the top of the second off Max Fried, who was making his Yankee debut, but then Cortes gave it back in the bottom half when he allowed his fifth home run of the day -- this one a three-run shot off the bat of Anthony Volpe. After issuing a walk to Jasson Domínguez to lead off the third, Cortes was finally lifted for a reliever. Domínguez soon after came around to score on a Bellinger single, which gave Cortes this final line for the day: 

Nestor Cortes

MIL • SP • #65

vs. NYY, 3/29/25

IP2

H6

R8

SO2

BB5

HR5

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That gives Cortes an ERA of 36.00 for the season. Cortes, 30, spent four-plus seasons with the Yankees. In 2022, he put up a 4.4 WAR season, earned his first and to date only All-Star selection, and finished eighth in the AL Cy Young vote. Last season, he pitched to a 3.77 ERA in 174 1/3 innings for the pennant-winning Yankees.

At least, though, Cortes wasn't around to give up a third-inning grand slam to Judge. That was the work of Connor Thomas, who replaced Cortes on the mound: 

Jazz Chisholm Jr. immediately hit a solo shot, giving the Yankees seven homers through the first three innings. That, not surprisingly, is a first: 

With one out in the fourth inning, the Nestor Cortes Show became the Aaron Judge Show. That's because Judge connected for the Yankees' eighth home run of the game and his third home run of the game. The moving pictures: 

That's the third three-homer game of Judge's career, and his next time up, he just missed home run No. 4: 

Instead, it was a ringing double, and it put Judge in elite franchise company: 

The Yankees were not done, as pinch-hitter Oswaldo Peraza in the seventh hit the Yanks' ninth homer of the day, thus setting that new franchise record: 

The Yankees become just the third team to hit nine or more homers in a game. They join the 1999 Cincinnati Reds, who also hit nine in a game, and the 1987 Toronto Blue Jays, who hold the single-game record with 10 home runs as a team. Had the Yankees not had the lead at home and had thus batted in the bottom of the ninth, they might have tied or broken that all-time mark.