(Photo: Yankees)
For the first time in weeks, the Yankees find themselves on the winning side of series! They had lost 3-straight series coming in and quite honestly have looked terrible. Thankfully, they welcomed a struggling Guardians team to the Bronx and were able to “right the ship” a bit and walk away with a series win.
It wasn’t pretty, not in the slightest. In fact, this should have been a 3-game sweep if not for poor managing by Aaron Boone… But that is a story (Boone) for another time. Game 1 saw an excellent pitching performance from Domingo German, who had allowed just a single hit in 8 innings of work. But after allowing hit number 2 of the game in the 9th inning, Aaron Boone yanked him from the game and turned things over to closer Clay Holmes… Holmes in turn would blow the save and then the Yanks would bring in Wandy Peralta who would allow the go-ahead run to score which in turn spelled the end to the Yankees in Game 1 and totally spoiling the GEM that German had pitched. Game 2 started off slow for the Yanks on offense. They were getting shut out heading into the 6th inning before a couple solo homers would tie things up and another homer in the 7th would be enough to push them to a win. Game 3 was another nail biter and another game we see Clay Holmes (almost) cost the Yankees a win… Luckily for the Yanks, they were able to tie things up in the 9th and then walk it off in the 10th. In fairness to Holmes in this game, the hits he gave up weren’t hit very hard. There were just more miscues on defense behind him and then he couldn’t put hitters away after. But we are putting Cleveland behind us and loading up the plane and heading off to Tampa for a weekend series with the Rays… I know it is only May, but this is a HUGE series for the Bombers. Tampa is off to a historic start and currently holds a 9-game lead on the Yanks in the AL East already… If the Yanks fall too far behind this early, it may be all she wrote on dreams of another AL East Division crown…
Here were the Game Scores from the Cleveland Series:
Game 1: CLE 3 NYY 2
W- De Los Santos (2-0, 1.74)
L- Holmes (0-2, 3.72)
SV- Clase (10)
Game 2: CLE 2 NYY 4
W- Peralta (2-0, 2.38)
L- Karinchak (0-4, 5.87)
SV- King (2)
Game 3: CLE 3 NYY 4 (F/10)
W- Abreu (1-0, 5.02)
L- Stephan (1-1, 1.42)
SV- None
-Jason Harris