Kluber Looks For First Win as a Yankee
Corey Kluber hasn’t had a chance to show the past few years whether or not he can still be the same pitcher — or at least largely similar — as the one who won the American League Cy Young award in either 2014 or 2017.
That was when he was in his prime — three straight All-Star game and five top-10 Cy Young finishes in a row — but he’s been doing nothing but battling injuries lately with both a strained abdominal as well as a torn muscle in his shoulder.
Kluber pitched just 36.2 innings over the past two seasons, but he’s now being asked to add experience to a Yankees starting rotation that might be one of the few weaknesses on the team.
He was underwhelming in his first start in pinstripes last week, giving up five hits and three walks in just more than four innings but just one run in an eventual 5-3 Yankees win. Kluber battled location issues all game — uncharacteristically — so it will be interesting to see if he’s able to reign it back in. But even though the start wasn’t great, he got to throw 74 pitches and left the game healthy, so that’s a good start.
The Right Names Are Coming Up Big Thus Far for New York
Every team wants everybody to be playing well, but of course, that’s not possible. However, for what has been a rather disappointing start in terms of wins and losses — New York is just 3-3 — the right names are performing well early on.
The Yankees have outscored their opponents by 10 runs thus far, one of the seven teams to be able to say that. And they’re doing so first and foremost thanks to dominant pitching giving up just 2.5 runs per game, but also because their best hitters are stepping up when it counts.
Aaron Judge is hitting .364 with a team-high two home runs and five RBI, DJ LeMahieu has a .400 on-base percentage, Giancarlo Stanton is tied for the team lead with five runs driven, and Gary Sanchez, who struggled beyond belief in 2019, already has two home runs.
But it’s a clear line for New York — score four runs to win. They’re 3-0 when they score more than four runs and they’re 0-3 when they score fewer than four runs. On top of that, two of the losses have come in extra innings.
Breaks will start going the Yankee’s way if they keep playing well, but Tampa Bay is a tough place to start that, even if they are the favorite.
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