Tonight the New York Yankees will go for their second sweep in a row, this time against the Toronto Blue Jays at the stadium in the Bronx, New York. The Yankees have gone on a seven-game tear with their first win of the Blue Jays earlier in the month and hope to cap it off with a sweep of the Jays in this meeting. In between, they swept the Baltimore Orioles in a four-game series.
Tonight will start off with the recently improved Masahiro Tanaka on the mound for the New York Yankees. He will face the Blue Jay’s, Chase Anderson. Tanaka has been on the uptick, whereas Anderson has recently declined. The Yankees have been on an offensive tear hitting 69 hits and 21 homers over the last eight games while having better than average pitching results.
Masahiro Tanaka is 2-2 and has reduced his ERA to 3.16 with 34 strikeouts over eight games. Tanaka got off to a slow start after being hit in the head with a comebacker late in summer camp. He has pitched quite well in his last three starts. In his last outing with the Baltimore Orioles on September 11. He went five innings with 91 pitches, he gave up one earned run while striking out 5 Orioles. The Yankees scored ten runs in the Tanaka win.
The Yankees will face Chase Anderson of the Blue Jays. Anderson is a righty that is 0-1 with a 5.82 ERA. Anderson has had seven starts this year, never going more than five innings. He has allowed more than a hit per inning and has struck out 25 hitters in the seven games. Recently, he has had some rough outings. The Jays have lost the last four of his starts. The most recent one was on September 11 against the Mets. He gave up four earned runs in just 2.2 innings. Only three Yankees, Giancarlo Stanton, DJ LeMahieu, and Luke Voit, have faced Anderson in his career, and none of them have hit particularly well off of him.
Before this recent winning streak, the Yankees were behind the Tampa Bay Rays and the Toronto Blue Jays in the East. They have now overtaking the Jays and are just three games behind the Rays while pushing the Jays a game and a half back. The Yankees are 7-3 in their last 10 games, and the Rays are 4-6. It is mathematically possible that the Yankees can retake the lead in the East, but is improbable. If the season ended today, the Yankees would first face the Minnesota Twins in the first round of the postseason. The New York Yankees have won 13 straight postseason games against the Twins, the longest win streak by any team against a single opponent in postseason history.