The Yankees used a home run barrage to beat the Cleveland Guardians on Friday
The Yankees shutout the Cleveland Indians, who will soon officially be called the Guardians, 8–0 behind five home runs by four different players on Friday night at Yankee Stadium. Corey Kluber also had by far his best game since coming off of the injured list.
Due to the Yankees win and the Blue Jays loss on Friday, the Yankees are now half a game ahead of Toronto for the second wild card spot. They are also half a game behind the Red Sox for the first wild card spot. The competition for the two wild card spots is very tight with the three division rivals, which makes the remaining 14 games of the season very important.
The Yankees have two more games against Cleveland at Yankees Stadium and then they will continue the home stand with a 3-game series against the Texas Rangers, who are 39 games below .500. It is a plus that the Yankees will not face Cleveland starter Cal Quantrill in this series since he has allowed two runs or less in seven of his last nine starts. If the Yankees win their next five games it will put them in good shape going into their challenging final three series of the season.
Joey Gallo hit two homers, Aaron Judge hit one homer, Brett Gardner hit a homer and Giancarlo Stanton hit a homer. Gallo hit his 37 homer of the season and 12th with the Yankees, Judge hit his 35th homer of the season and Stanton hit his 29th homer of the season. Gallo, Judge and Stanton are all in the top 20 in homers in the American League this season. The Yankees are also now 14–1 when Judge and Stanton homer in the same game this season.
The five homers that they hit on Friday tied a season-high. The Yankees have 1- consecutive games with a homer and they have hit a total of 25 homers in those 10 games.
Lucas Luetge finished off the game with a strikeout after retiring the side in order on 11 pitches in the ninth. He has had a very impressive season pitching in MLB for the first time since 2015. In his 67.2 innings he has an impressive 2.79 ERA, a 1.12 WHIP and 73 strikeouts with just 15 walks.
The Yankees got a rare easy blowout win. The Yankees had their 12th shutout this season. The only AL team with more is Blue Jays, who have 14 @ktsharp. This is the team’s most shutouts in a season since the 2005 season, when they had 14.
Gardner scored his 941st run in this game which puts him only one run scored behind Red Rolfe for 15th in franchise history. He will likely move ahead of him before the end of the season.
Aaron Judge showed off his canon of an arm to get a double play at first base as the runner strayed too far off first in the first inning. That was his 10th outfield assist, which is 5th among outfielders this season.
Giancarlo Stanton grounded into his 20th double play of the season in first inning. Gallo then hit a homer into the second deck in right and he has really been on a homer barrage recently. That was his 36th homer and he is on fire recently.
Aaron Judge hit a homer into the bullpen on a slider in the 4th inning to make the score 2–0. That was his 35th homer of the season, which puts him in a tie for sixth most in the AL.
The Cleveland Guardians had first and second with no outs in the fifth for the second time in the game. They did not score the first time. In the fifth, Kluber was able to get the fast Myles Straw to ground into a double play on a short hop to second base. That was big. The next batter then grounded out after shattering his bat and this stranded the runner at third.
Cleveland starter Zach Plesac retired six in a row going into the seventh. He is Dan Plesac’s nephew. Gio Urshela did a good job taking what the pitcher gave him to hit a line drive single to center to score Gallo from second and make score 3–0 with no outs in 7th. Plesac was then taken out of game.
The veteran Brett Gardner then pulled a ball to about the sixth row in right for a 3-run homer in the 7th to make the score 6–0. There were still no outs in the 7th.
First Yankees win by at least six runs since August 27 at Oakland.
Giancarlo Stanton hit a 106 mph exit velocity homer, for his 29th homer this season, in the eighth inning. That was the Yankees fourth homer of the game. They got a much needed blowout of the Indians. The Yankees then went back-to-back with Gallo hitting a homer to the bullpen for his second homer of game.
This was his 6th multi homer game of season, which is tied for most in MLB. Gallo has been a better hitter in the bottom of the order. He hit his seventh homer in last 13 games and in his last eight starts he is 9–29 with six homers and seven RBI. Six of his last nine hits have been homers.
He said he will likely not do home run derby again because that had an adverse effect on his swing and now he has it where he wants it.
“Keep working hard,” Gallo said. “Show up to the field with the belief that we are going to win and we are going to put up a lot of runs everyday. Today it worked out for us.”
“I have found a rhythm and have a little bit of confidence at the plate,” Gallo said about his success recently. “Working with our hitting coaches trying to get back to where I was early in the season. Once you see one go over the fence you start getting a little bit of confidence. We opened up my stance a little more. I just had to relax a little bit and let the game happen. I just have to be myself. The most impotent thing was to loosen up and play.”
Urshela has been hitting well at the plate as he is on a 4-game hitting streak with a .400 average (6–15), a double, a homer and four RBI in that span. In his first 14 games since coming off of the injured list, he was only 5–44. It took him a while to regain his offense and switching positions to shortstop might have also helped him.
The Yankees have gone 5–2 in their last seven games. They have scored at least five runs in five of the seven games. During their seven-game losing streak before this 5–2 stretch they scored more than four runs in only one game. This proves how important hitting home runs and scoring at least five runs is for this team.
Kluber had his best start since coming off the injured list on August 30. This was his fourth start and the most innings he had previously thrown since coming off the IL was 4.0 and the most pitches he had thrown was 82. Against the Indians, he resembled the pitcher he was in his last few starts before going on the injured list as he did not allow a run, had four strikeouts and just four hits allowed. He lowered his ERA from 4.02 to 3.68.
Kluber now has five wins in 14 starts this season. Jordan Montgomery has been very unlucky this season since he only have five wins in 27 starts this season even though he also haas a very good ER of 3.63, which is basically the same as Kluber’s.
Kluber got a big double play in the 6th and ended up pitching 6 innings and throwing 95 pitches. He gave the team more than they could have asked for and was pitching like he did in his last few starts before going on the injured list. This start gave Kluber a 2.31 ERA at Yankee Stadium this season. Kluber hit one batter and walked 2.
If Kluber can continue to pitch like he did on Friday, the Yankees will have a very good rotation down the stretch with Gerrit Cole, Montgomery and Kluber and Nestor Cortes Jr. Cortes has been a very reliable starter for the Yankees somewhat out of nowhere and he has a dominant 2.00 ERA in his last three starts with just four earned runs allowed and a total of 23 strikeouts in 18 innings.
“Kluber was unbelievable,” Gallo said. “He threw a no hitter against us in Texas early this year. When he is on, he is one of the nastiest in the game. He definitely looked like he was on today and guys were taking bad swings. He is such a great pitcher and is so calm, it is great to see that. He looked like he did when he threw that no-hitter against us in Texas.”
In his five starts in May, which included his no-hitter against the Rangers, he had a very good 2.27 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 31.2 innings.
Michael King pitched the seventh and eighth innings and continued to have a positive impact in the bullpen. He did not allow a hit or a walk in his two innings and had three strikeouts. His command is on point and is throwing the ball exactly where he wants it to go. Fifteen of his 20 pitches were strikes and in his three games since coming off of the injured list he has allowed just one earned run and two hits in eight innings for an ERA of 1.13.
The Yankees were 2–4 with runners in scoring position and Urshela and Gardner had both of those hits.
