Sunday might be the most encouraging day for Aaron Boone since Aaron Judge had pain-free big toes.
Judge struck, and the Yankees then followed the captain’s lead.
After the judge swung against Jonathan Loaysiega the first time he faced a straight pitch since he fell in early June, the Yankees lineup has kept up the positive momentum.
The Yankees poured in four first-inning home runs on their way to an 8-5 victory over the Royals, completing a sweep in front of 44,130 in the Bronx.
The Yankees (53-47) won three straight games for the first time since they won four straight from May 27-30, when the judge’s bat was still holding the team.
On an excellent day for the club, there were two concerns arising from the match.
The first occurred in the seventh inning, when Anthony Volpe hit a grounder to Gleber Torres, who left the game with tightness in his left thigh.
The only other negative development involved the Royals (28-73) leaving town, with the Yankees next hosting the Mets in two games.
After scoring seven runs in three losses in Anaheim, the Yankees bounced back against poor Kansas City for 18 innings.
Sunday’s kicker Jordan Lyles entered with a 6.05 ERA and left with a mark of 6.19.
Previously, the Yankees had not been able to hit fumble pitchers.
On an afternoon of cheering at the bat, Anthony Rizzo’s connections loomed large.
The cold hawk hit his first home run in over two months and finished 4-for-4, splashing an RBI double to left center, two runs through center and pulling a 364-foot putt to right.
Rizzo’s home run was his first since May 20.
In 45 games between these fellows, the first baseman batted . 182 and struck out 46 times in 165 at-bats, an astonishing run through a largely critical part of the season.
He’s tried anything to get out of his funk, including giving up his hitting gloves on Saturday.
After smoking a Lyles sinker on the eighth pitch of his inning third, Rizzo returned to the dugout, which he shrugged.
The Yankees gave Rizzo the silent treatment as he bounced his way through the dugout until his teammates exploded with joy.
The positive signs at the team level started immediately.
The Yankees scored four runs in the first, when they tagged Lyles for five hits.
Jake Powers, in his first outing off IL, singled and then wandered around the bases as Torres blasted his 16th homer of the season.
Giancarlo Stanton’s batter continued to show life with a single before hitting Rizzo’s double.
Luis Severino’s stuff — including his fastball that maxed out at 100.2 mph — impressed, though two consecutive home runs off Michael Massey in the sixth inning blighted his home streak (5²/innings, three runs on eight hits).
Massey is an obvious Yankee killer.
The second-year player has four home runs in 71 games against non-Yankees teams, and three in three games against the Yankees.
But with the Royals threatening a two-run game, with runners on the corners in the eighth inning, Michael King hit Massey in the final frame.
The Yankees ball swerved in the ninth inning, when Ron Marinaccio allowed two homers, but they pitched well — with some help from another positive Yankees mark.
In the seventh, Kansas City’s Nick Prato hit Ian Hamilton with a four-run homer to deep right field, but Harrison Bader was on the move.
In his first start since being drilled in the ribs Wednesday, the center fielder ran a long run, reached the caution track and hit it against the wall with his fully straight left arm, stealing Prato from the extra bases.
Hamilton can exhale. So did the Yankees, especially after they added three runs in the eighth inning.
They loaded the bases for Oswald Peraza, whose sharp ground ball to first base scored two on a Royals error before Kyle Higashioka’s sacrifice fly for the eighth was lifted.
With Judge about to make a comeback, maybe the club can start breathing again, too.
