Yankees 12, Indians 3
The New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians have a history of memorable postseason games against one another. In Game One of the 2020 installment, late inning home runs, come from behind wins, and rally midges were far from the expected. Rather, the anticipation was a tense, low-scoring game as both teams sent their aces to the mound.
Instead, the end result was the highest-scoring game of all four of Tuesday’s series openers…before the fifth inning was over. The Yankees grabbed control of the game early and held on to a 12-3 victory.
Yankees Offensive Explosion
While the story of the game early on was pitching, the offense is what won the game. The Yankees struck fast. Four pitches into the game, they led 2-0 after DJ LeMahieu singled and Aaron Judge homered. The game more or less ended right there as the Yankees stole the momentum and ran with it.
In the final week of the regular season, the Yankees failed to hit a home run in six of seven games. That was a stark difference from Tuesday’s game where they hit four home runs. All nine starters reached base at least once, and four of them recorded multi-hit games.
Manager Aaron Boone was happy with his team’s performance at the plate, and he stressed the quality of the at-bats against the Indians pitching.
“Guys up and down the batting order, just, really good at bats, made it real tough on a great, great pitcher,” Boone said.
Brett Gardner and Gleyber Torres provided great production at the bottom of the lineup, combining for seven hits and six RBI.
The Indians, meanwhile, could not generate offense. Aside from Josh Naylor, who had four hits himself, including three for extra bases, they managed four hits from the other eight starters.
Indians Pitching Struggles
What was considered to be one of the best postseason matchups on paper, ultimately fell short of the hype. Shane Bieber was not at his best in this game. Although the pitching triple crown winner struck out seven, he put 11 men on base in 4 2/3 innings pitched. Seven of those 11 baserunners came in to score.
One of the major issues for Bieber, was his inability to get the Yankees to chase as they did a good job of laying off of his curveball. This put him behind in a lot of counts throughout the night, something he attributes to being part of the issue.
“I felt like I fell behind quite a bit and forced myself into some bad situations and some bad counts,” Bieber said. “All that on top of not having my best stuff amounted to what came out of tonight.”
Even after the Bieber exited the game, the Indians, who posted the second-best collective ERA in MLB still struggled to get outs. Cam Hill and Adam Cimber combined to allow five earned runs in 2 2/3 innings pitched.
Meanwhile, Gerrit Cole did live up to expectations. While making his Yankees postseason debut, Cole showed why the organization pursued him in free agency. He recorded 13 strikeouts in seven innings pitched while allowing no walks. His performance set the Yankees up well in this series as they go for the two-game sweep on Wednesday.
Main Photo: Embed from Getty Images
