The Yankees Pick Up Two Wins Against the O’s, but Leave Us Frustrated As Ever
After a miserable series against the Blue Jays in which the Yankees simply couldn’t score runs, they looked determined to recover against the Yankee punching bag, Baltimore Orioles. Jordan Montgomery took the mound and he was flawless. In his beautiful six shutout innings, he threw seven ks and 0 walks. Monty mixed his pitches well and looked practically unhittable. This was a great start to the 2021 season for Montgomery, who has sky high expectations heading into the season. After Monty’s stellar performance the bullpen continued their early dominance in this 2021 season. Luis Cessa made his first appearance of the season, and he dealt. He tossed two shutout innings along with three strikeouts. Coming off the two game suspension for the Mike Brassaue incident, Aroldis Chapman came in for the 9th inning for the save. Chapman looked sharp in his one inning of work in which he struck out the side.
The New York Yankees’ offense which looked miserable all series long against the Blue Jays looked to redeem themselves against Baltimore. The Yanks’ offense put together by far the best game of this early season. Aaron Judge had two hits along with his first home run of the year. The struggling Giancarlo Stanton had his first hit of the season, and it was a big one. With the Yanks up 2-0 in the 5th Stanton stepped to the plate with the bases loaded. He then put a baseball into orbit for the grand slam. The offense finally reached their potential while putting up 7 runs. A great day on both sides of the ball for our beloved Yankees led to the 7-0 victory in which they pleased Yankee Nation. The Yanks look to keep it going with Gerrit Cole on the bump in the next game.
Gerrit Cole. What did we ever do to deserve that man? That’s a question I repeatedly asked myself during Gerrit Cole’s dominant seven inning 13 strikeout performance in which he completely overmatched the weak Baltimore Orioles’ offense while allowing four hits and zero walks. Cole was spectacular and virtually unhittable in Tuesday night’s 7-2 victory over the O’s. It’s games like this that remind me why exactly we gave Cole the nine year 324 million dollar contract. While Cole’s outing was clearly the brightspot of the game, the Yankees’ offense was not lacking either. The Yanks put up seven runs for the second game in a row. The offensive performance by the bombers was led by a monster night from AL MVP candidate, Aaron Judge. Judge went 3 for 5 with an rbi single and a colossal three run blast to put the Orioles in the coffin. Giancarlo Stanton looked sharp as well with 2 hits including an RBI double. Jay Bruce also had his first homer in pinstripes. The Yankees have now won back to back games and look to complete the series sweep with Jameson Taillon on Wednesday.
Rob Manfred is quite possibly the worst commissioner in all of sports. He is a man that is willing to damage the integrity of a beautiful sport in order to make it faster. He is a man that is willing to ruin the sport that we all love just to make it go by faster. I would love to ask Rob Manfred one question. Who is he trying to speed the game up for? The people that consume baseball love the game how it is. We don’t need unnecessary ridiculous changes. I understand trying to bring new fans to the game, but new rules are not the way to do it. The fact of the matter is people find baseball boring. Adding a runner on second to start extra innings will not make baseball more appealing to the people who find it boring. Manfred needs to stop trying to make baseball appealing to people that will never watch it no matter what changes are made, and he needs to make baseball a game that people who love baseball want to watch. And right now he is ruining the game that we love. Rob Manfred’s miniature brain is one of the many reasons the New York Yankees lost an eleven inning heartbreaker 4-3 to the Baltimore Orioles.
Jameson Taillon made his first start in pinstripes and looked sharp. He allowed two solo homers, but he executed pitches in big spots. The Yankees’ offense again struggled to put runs on the board. Aaron Hicks’ RBI single remained the Yanks’ only offense until the eighth. Down 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth Gio Urshella stepped to the plate with two away and Mike Tauchman on first. Urshella roped a double into the gap which allowed Tauchman to score from first on a close play at the plate. The limited capacity Yankee Stadium crowd erupted on what was the most exciting play of the young yankee season. Tied 2-2 with a runner on third and 2 away in the top of the tenth a grounder was hit to Gleyber Torres. Gleyber made the same throwing error that we have seen way too many times, and the runner from third scored on the play. Gleyber Torres’ defensive struggles continue to be a hot topic among Yankee fans and this time it cost them the game. There are no excuses for Gleyber’s horrific defense. With the huge market for shortstops, this upcoming offseason Gleyber will most definitely be on the hot seat if he doesn’t drastically improve his defense over the course of the season. The bombers were dead in the bottom of the tenth. The game felt lost. Until Kyle Higashioka stepped to the plate with 2 away and Tyler Wade on second. He lined a clutch single to right field, and Wade avoided the tag with an outstanding slide and gave the Yanks life again. The top of the eleventh saw a bunt and a bloop give the Orioles the lead once again, and in the bottom of the eleventh Gio Urshella tried to tag up on a lineout to right by DJ LeMahieu and was gunned down for the game ending double play.
Just like that, the Yankees took the toughest loss of the season so far. Games like this leave fans fuming. The frustration will remain until Friday because the Yanks have an off day on Thursday. They look to get revenge on the team that sent them home last season, the Tampa Bay Rays.
Article Written By: Riley Briggs