New York Yankees: Game Two Preview and Prediction

Last night the New York Yankees could not get any offense going and in turn they dropped game one to the Indians 4-0. So can they recover in game two and tie up the series 1-1?

ALDS Game Two:

New York Yankees @ Cleveland Indians 5:00 PM EST

Indians Lead Series 1-0

Starting Pitchers:

New York Yankees: CC Sabathia (14-9, 3.69 ERA)

Cleveland Indians: Corey Kluber (18-4, 2.25 ERA)

Corey Kluber vs. Yankees in 2017:

August 3rd: 9.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 11 K, 106 Pitches- Win

August 28th: 8.0 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 HR, 1 BB, 7 K, 110 Pitches- Win

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However, even though the Indians won 4-0 Sonny Gray and the Yankees pitching staff managed to hold the Tribe to only five hits. If CC Sabathia and the bullpen can manage to hold them off again tonight the Yankees may be able to gruel out a victory in game two.

Keys to the Game:

The main key to the game tonight is Aaron Judge. Judge went 0-4 last night with four strikeouts against Bauer and the Indians. If Judge can help out the Yankees in any way then it will light a spark in the Yankees offense and hopefully lead to more than three hits tonight.

Judge has yet to face off against Corey Kluber as he did not play in the August 3rd game, nor the August 28th game. It will be interesting to see the American League’s best hitter face off against the American League’s best pitcher.

Another key tonight is going to be the bullpen. Through two games Joe Girardi has shown us that he does not care how long his starting pitchers go because he is trying to use their strength, which is their pitching, to the best of their ability. Through two games it has worked but at some point the bullpen is going to get tired because they are being used every night.

While the Yankees may have lost 4-0 last night the pitchers definitely did their job. Although Sonny Gray went only 3.1 innings, he managed to hold the Indians to three hits, one of those hits however was a two-run home run.

If the offense could have helped Gray and the pitching staff in any way we would be talking about how great the Yankees pitching staff was last night, as they held the American League-Best, Indians to only 5 hits.

Game Two Prediction:

Indians 5 Yankees 1

Unfortunately I think the Yankees will drop their second straight game to the Indians, falling to 0-2 in the series, as it shifts to New York. I think Girardi will pull Sabathia after he lets up three to four runs through four innings before he turns it over to Chad Green and the bullpen.

Next: Analyzing the ALDS rotation

Corey Kluber is just too good of a pitcher and the Yankees will not be able to generate any offense against the soon to be, two-time Cy Young Award winner. Tonight’s game will be very similar to last night’s as the Yankees will probably have only 5 or 6 hits as Kluber goes about six innings for the Tribe.

Aaron Judge will not go 0-4 tonight with four strikeouts. He will have a single or two helping the Yankees put up a run or two on the board.

Indians lead (2-0).

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