YANKEES RECAP

- April Claudio, Contributor

In full transparency, I was going to do a write up on the Yankees west coast tour to wrap up the month of May but after watching the first two games of the Los Angeles Dodgers series, I feel that series deserves its own write up. So here’s a quick update on the week prior.

May 23rd the Yankees kicked off Memorial Day weekend with a 3 game series against the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies have the worst record in the league so it should have been 3 easy wins for the Yankees. However the Rockies put up a fight in 2 of the 3 games and even won the first game of the series. Clarke Schmidt got the start against Tanner Gordon. Schmidt gave up 3 runs in 4 2/3 innings and struck out 8 while Gordon gave up 2 runs in 6 innings and struck out 5. The Rockies won 3-2. The Yankees 2 runs were a RBI double by Paul Goldschmidt and a solo home run by Aaron Judge.

Game 2 was what everyone expected. The Yankees won 13-1. Max Fried had another great outing, giving up 1 run in 7 1/3 innings and struck out 7. Judge hit a solo home run in the first inning, his 18th. The game was tied 1-1 until the Yankees brought 14 batters to the plate and scored 10 runs in fifth inning. They added 2 more runs in the eighth inning. Kyle Freeland allowed 8 runs in 4 1/3 innings and now has 0 wins in 14 straight starts.

Game 3 was a little closer with the Yankees winning 5-4. Will Warren gave up 2 runs and struck out 7 in four innings. After the second inning the game was tied until Judge’s RBI double in the fifth inning following by a RBI sacrifice fly by Jasson Dominguez. The Rockies scored a run in the sixth inning but the Yankees scored one in the eighth inning. Down 2 the Rockies tried to rally in the ninth inning but only were able to score 1 run on a home run by Mickey Moniak. Mark Leiter Jr. earned the win for this game.

The Yankees then headed to Los Angeles where fans at Angel Stadium had 5 days of fun baseball as the Yankees swept the Angels in 3 games with good pitching battles before the Savannah Bananas came to town to play 2 games against the Firefighters.

Ryan Yarbrough earned his second win of the season on Memorial Day with a solid start, pitching 7 innings with 7 strikeouts and 1 earned run. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the fifth inning which included a 3 run double by Anthony Volpe. Jack Kochanowicz retired the first nine Yankees batters until their rally in the fourth inning. The Angels sole run was a lead off home run by Zach Neto. The Yankees won 5-1.

The next day Carlos Rodon had a stellar performance pitching seven shutout innings with 10 strikeouts. Tyler Anderson also pitched well, giving up 2 runs, only 1 earned, in six innings. Ben Rice scored the Yankees first run with a home run in the fourth inning. Anthony Volpe hit a RBI single in the sixth inning and Oswaldo Peraza hit a solo home run in the seventh inning putting the Yankees up 3-0. The Angels tried to rally in the ninth inning but were only able to score 2 runs off Devin Williams. The Yankees won 3-2.

Wrapping up the series, was another pitching battle, this time between Clarke Schmidt and Yusei Kikuchi. Schmidt pitched six shutout innings, striking out 4 and only gave up 4 hits. Kikuchi gave up 1 run in five innings. That sole run was a RBI sacrifice fly by Anthony Volpe. With help from 3 relievers the Yankees shut out the Angels and won 1-0.

Stay tuned to find out the Yankees vs Dodgers series went.