ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Aaron Judge and Ben Rice had the first back-to-back homers for the Yankees this season, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. also went deep as AL-best New York beat the Texas Rangers 4-2 on Monday night.
Judge matched the big league lead with his 11th homer, a day after also hitting one on his 34th birthday, to make it 3-0 with two outs in the third inning. That came right after Rice’s 10th homer, his sixth in 11 games.
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New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. celebrates his solo home run in the fourth inning of a baseball game as umpire Ben May and Texas Rangers third baseman Josh Jung, right rear, look on Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter throws to the New York Yankees in the third inning of a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees pitcher Max Fried throws to the Texas Rangers in the first inning of a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge and Ben Rice, right, celebrate Rice's two-run home run in the third inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run in the third inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
They became the second pair of Yankees teammates to each have 10 or more homers in the first 29 games, joining Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra in 1956.
Max Fried (4-1) scattered four singles over six scoreless innings pitching out of the stretch as the Yankees (19-10) got their 10th win in 12 games. David Bednar, the third reliever, allowed an unearned run in the ninth while getting his eighth save in nine chances when Ezequiel Duran grounded into a forceout with two on.
Texas starter Jack Leiter (1-2) allowed the three homers in six innings.
Pinch-hitter Joc Pederson had a solo homer for Texas in the seventh.
Rice's two-run shot came a pitch after Trent Grisham reached on a single, the ball deflecting off Leiter’s glove with charging shortstop Corey Seager unable to make a barehand pickup.
Judge, who also had two doubles, followed with a 414-foot drive that landed in the left-field seats not far from the spot he hit his AL season record 62nd homer on Oct. 4, 2022.
After no homers his first 23 games, Chisholm has three in five games. He homered on the first pitch of the fourth.
Fried has allowed no runs in four of seven starts, going at least six innings in each of those scoreless outings.
The left-hander also had the Yankees' 38th pickoff since 2017, the most by any pitcher in that span. The Yankees have picked off a runner in fourth straight games for the first time since 1995; one of those pitchers 31 years ago was David Cone, who was in the ballpark broadcasting Monday's game.
Seager, a two-time World Series MVP, went 0 for 4 with three strikeouts on his 32nd birthday.
Jacob deGrom (2-0, 2.13 ERA) pitches for Texas on Tuesday night, and 25-year-old right-hander Cam Schlittler (3-1, 1.77) goes for New York.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
New York Yankees' Jazz Chisholm Jr. celebrates his solo home run in the fourth inning of a baseball game as umpire Ben May and Texas Rangers third baseman Josh Jung, right rear, look on Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter throws to the New York Yankees in the third inning of a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees pitcher Max Fried throws to the Texas Rangers in the first inning of a baseball game Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge and Ben Rice, right, celebrate Rice's two-run home run in the third inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
New York Yankees' Aaron Judge rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run in the third inning of a baseball game against the Texas Rangers Monday, April 27, 2026, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)
TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 27, 2026--
Helical Fusion Co., Ltd., a fusion energy company developing a Helical stellarator power plant, today announced the launch of Helix Program Official Partners, a new strategic partnership framework designed to bring together long-term industrial collaborators committed to advancing fusion from laboratory progress to real-world fusion power deployment.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260427596284/en/
The Helix Program is Helical Fusion’s core initiative to realize commercially viable fusion energy in the 2030s. Rather than starting from a reactor concept alone, the program works backward from the three essential requirements for commercial fusion power: net electricity, continuous operation, and high maintainability. Based on this framework, Helical Fusion has adopted the Helical Stellarator as the reactor approach with the clearest pathway to achieving all three requirements in a fully operational fusion power plant, building on Japan’s decades-long research foundation in helical stellarator technology.
The first three companies to join as founding Official Partners are NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., and Seno Kisen Co., Ltd. Each brings a business legacy spanning roughly a century or more. More importantly, they are joining not simply as suppliers or investors, but as long-term partners who share Helical Fusion’s ambition of helping build the fusion energy industry itself.
“Commercial fusion will not be realized by a startup alone, or by physics alone,” said Takaya Taguchi, Co-Founder and CEO of Helical Fusion Co., Ltd. “It requires a coalition of companies willing to apply the strengths they have built over generations to one of the most consequential industrial challenges of the next century. Helix Program Official Partners was created for that purpose.”
Unlike a conventional sponsorship program, Helix Program Official Partners is structured for companies that will work alongside Helical Fusion as active industrial collaborators. Participation is tied not only to strategic business alignment, but also to capital commitment. The framework is intended to support manufacturing and construction for Helix HARUKA, Helical Fusion’s Integrated Demonstration Device, and ultimately Helix KANATA, the company’s planned first commercial plant in the 2030s.
About Helix Program Official Partners
NICHIAS Corporation, founded in 1896, has supplied insulation, sealing, and high-performance industrial products to sectors that have underpinned modern industrial society, including shipbuilding, petroleum refining and petrochemicals, electric power, automobiles, construction, and semiconductors. Its participation reflects the view that the technologies required for large-scale industry in one era can become enabling technologies for a new energy system in the next.
Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., founded in 1887, has evolved through more than a century of manufacturing while building expertise in materials and textile-based technologies. Its decision to join points to a broader idea central to fusion commercialization: that advanced materials companies with deep manufacturing DNA may have an important role in shaping the infrastructure of future energy.
Seno Kisen Co., Ltd., founded in 1946 and built through decades of global maritime operations, brings expertise in industrial logistics, fleet management, and the movement of essential resources that sustain economies. Its participation underscores that future energy systems will not depend only on invention, but on the operational disciplines needed to move, deploy, and sustain large-scale assets in the real world.
The company is already advancing that roadmap in hardware. Manufacturing and construction are underway for magnet demonstration work for Helix HARUKA at a dedicated Helical Fusion workspace on the campus of the National Institute for Fusion Science in Toki, Gifu.
In connection with this broader push, Helical Fusion also completed the first close of its Series B round, raising approximately JPY 2.7 billion. Investors in the round include NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., Seno Kisen Co., Ltd., Ecrowd NEXT, Konoike Transport Co., Ltd., and MITANI SANGYO Co., Ltd., among others. Among these investors, NICHIAS Corporation, Hasetora Spinning Co., Ltd., and Seno Kisen Co., Ltd. are also participating as the Helix Program Official Partners. Including grants and loans, the company’s total funding to date has reached approximately JPY 9.8 billion. The company said this additional capital will support continued development under the Helix Program alongside the expansion of its industrial partnership network.
About Helical Fusion Co., Ltd.
Helical Fusion Co., Ltd. is a company working to commercialize fusion energy through the development of the Helical Stellarator. The company was founded in 2021 as a spin-out from the National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), leveraging research achievements accumulated at NIFS.
The construction of Helix HARUKA, (dedicated space in national institute for fusion science)
Helical Fusion’s Integrated Demonstration Device, “Helix HARUKA,” currently under construction (photographed at the company’s dedicated workspace within the National Institute for Fusion Science in Gifu, Japan)
