A sweep in Yankee Stadium South and the Bronx

Again, I am late to recapping these games but here is the last game against the Baltimore and the entire Red Sox series.

7/30/20: A rain-soaked Camden Yards almost ended another Yankee game in 2020 with another rain shortened game, but after a prolonged delay, the Bombers ended their second series of the year with a sweep of the O’s.

For this day forth I will not try to say anything positive about J.A. Happ. For the most part I try to give the benefit of the doubt to athletes, but for Happ he has completely run out of rope (he ran out of rope halfway through last year, but hey 2020!), Happ just straight up stinks. I don’t have a nickname for Happ like I had for Chase bleeping Headley, but this Baltimore start officially cemented Happ in my love-hate Yankee rolodex. Thankfully for the rest of the Bomber bullpen, they road the ship and helped deliver a sweep at Yankee Stadium south.

Along with that, Luke Voit hit his first Major League grand slam to help power the Yanks to another win. Judge added a three-run bomb for insurance. The bats have stayed hot through the pandemic and pushing toward 60-game history.

Looking to tomorrow, it is the first Red Sox series. Usually, the first Red Sox series is an unofficial holiday to me, the first Red Sox series is the first series to get me truly excited about a Yankee baseball season. There is Opening Day, but it gets real when the Bombers play the Bo’Sox. Jordan Montgomery takes the hill for his first time this season and will truly test his arm post Tommy John surgery. But, for now, it’s a Yankee win and a Yankee sweep, and the best record in the American League.

 7/31/20: Gumby brought some of his best stuff against the Red Sox as the Yankees cruised to an easy win against the Red Sox for their fifth consecutive win. The Bombers look to be in midseason form and showing the type of team they want to be as they are dominating almost every time they put their collective feet inside the white lines.

Judge hit another homer while Gio Urshella hit his first bomb of the year and the Yanks threw a Gardy party for Brett Gardner as he added some insurance in the 8^th and helping himself get off of a cold streak in the process. Chad Green relieved Montgomery and threw two incredible innings to push the game through the middle innings and squander any hope that Boston had in rallying to get back in the ball game. In terms of game notes, LeMahieu continued his hot hitting with three more hits, living up to his LeMachine nickname. The Bombers will have an interesting decision in the offseason to make with LeMahieu—because if he continues this type of production he will increase the price tag that the Yankees will have to give him for his next contract. Especially with Tyler Wade, Andujar, and Estrada coming through the pipeline, what the Yanks do with LeMahieu will be the biggest question of the offseason. I’m not saying the Yankees won’t meet whatever LeMahieu asks for, but with the cautious spending habits of the Steinbrenner sons, it is worth noting.

For tomorrow, Masahiro Tanaka makes his season debut after a comebacker scare in Summer Camp. Whatever Tanaka can give the Bombers in his first start will be a positive—he just needs to get through the game without letting the Red Sox use him as a doormat. It would be a cherry on top if Tanaka can give the Yanks some length given the lack of continuity in that department as a staff, but you can’t ask the world from a guy who took a 114 MPH line drive off the skull. Right now, however, the Yankees are celebrating another win and are padding their division lead, let’s go Yankees!

 8/1/20: Today’s game was the pitching staff of the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Railriders against the Boston Red Sox hitters and the Red Sox still lost. Given the work load the Yankees pen A-team, the B-team took the field tonight and shutdown the Bo’Sox. To me this was a Tanaka rehab start with the help that he had out of the pen.

That B-team was aided by yet another Aaron Judge homer, and as he catches fire, he is powering a Yankee offense that is simply the best offense in baseball. One through nine there are killers (or should I say savages) coming at you in the box. Throughout baseball teams are barely getting out of the station during this 60-game sprint, while Bombers are taking every roadblock in stride and crushing the rest of the league.

Gio Urshella muscled a grand slam into Monument Park while also stealing a bag later in the game and becoming the first Yankee in history to hit a grand slam and steal a base in the same game. Back to the B-team bullpen, tonight is a win that usually would happen around this time of year just to give the whole team a break (although it usually happens in a blow out not a three run game) and it adds to the aura around this team and is a testament to how dominant this team actually is. Besides Tanaka, everyone that pitched in the game for the pinstripes would be the go-to Railriders bullpen arms, but for a team that has Britton, Chapman, Green, and Ottovino, these guys wouldn’t come close to sniffing the field. That is not a slight to the talent of Avilan, Nelson, or Hale but they are not traditionally Major League arms this early on in their careers, but with the COVID extended rosters here they are helping add to a Yankee win.  

Tomorrow, the Yankees go for the sweep against the Red Sox, as James Paxton looks to rewrite the start to his season and have a better start than his clunker in Washington last week. For now, it is another Yankee win, five in a row! Let’s go Yankees!

8/2/20: James Paxton is not fully back from his back surgery that would have delayed him for the start of this season if it started in April. Paxton would’ve been slated to return somewhere around the beginning of June, but without a minor league rehab session, his rust post-surgery is showing in games that matter to the Bombers. Thankfully for Paxton and the Yankees, the rest of the team picked up Paxton as the Yanks battled back for their second straight sweep.

I will not give up Paxton simply because he is trying to figure out how to pitch post-surgery and has not faced Major League hitters for eight plus months. Everyone knows how great Paxton can be when he is himself, he is not there yet. Give him some time to get things right, and he will return to borderline Cy Young level. You just can’t predict these type of things, I mean I hope he can fix it in his next start, that’s not realistic however.

The Bombers used a great 5^th inning to stay in the game after a second inning three-run homer for Aaron Judge as Sanchez and Urshella both doubled to tie the game at five. Aaron Judge returned to the plate putting on his savior cape hitting a two-run MOONSHOT into the New York night to edge out the Red Sox 9-7 brushing the Red Sox out of the Bronx. In between all of that, Michael King had his first memorable Yankee moment throwing three and two thirds innings in relief of Paxton and giving the Yankees cover to get back into the game.

At 7-1, the Yanks look at their first four-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies (or WalMart Yankees depends on how you look at it), making up a double header from last weeks COVID shortened series. For now, it’s a Bomber sweep against public enemy number one (because we can’t play Houston yet), with the savages killing the game. If baseball hasn’t taken notice yet, now is the final warning, the New York Yankees are officially on Mission 28 and won’t stop until champagne soak the walls of the Bronx home clubhouse. Let’s go Yankees and let’s go for seven in a row!