The Indians began their four-game series against the Yankees in New York on Thursday with a win. Tonight, right-hander Carlos Carrasco (11-9, 3.63) makes the start for Cleveland against RHP Masahiro Tanaka (9-5, 3.56). This is Cleveland’s 8th four-game series of the season and, surprisingly enough, they’ve won all but one of them. Of course, the last time they won a four-game series against the Yankees was in 2000.
So far, this road trip hasn’t been great. The Indians have lost 8 of their last 12 games on the road and scored exactly one run in 5 of those 8 losses. At the risk of being repetitive, the Tribe needs to start scoring runs, and they need to do it early in the game. None of this late-rally-when-they’re-down-by-six-runs stuff. Cleveland is 37-12 when scoring first and 19-52 when their opponent scores first. They need to score first, period.
Hope springs eternal.
Indians | Yankees | ||
DH
|
Jason Kipnis |
CF
|
Brett Gardner |
SS
|
Francisco Lindor |
3B
|
Chase Headley |
LF
|
Michael Brantley | DH | Alex Rodriguez |
1B
|
Carlos Santana |
C
|
Brian McCann |
RF
|
Lonnie Chisenhall |
RF
|
Carlos Beltran |
C
|
Yan Gomes |
1B
|
Greg Bird |
CF
|
Abraham Almonte |
LF
|
Chris Young |
3B
|
Giovanny Urshela |
2B
|
Stephen Drew |
2B
|
Jose Ramirez |
SS
|
Brendan Ryan |
SP
|
Carlos Carrasco |
SP
|
Masahiro Tanaka |
While the Tribe is basically out of serious playoff contention, it sure is nice to cause problems for the Yankees.
First time the Indians have won the season series vs the Yanks in consecutive years since 1968-69!
Making the playoffs is always number one, but beating the Yankees is a satisfying number two!