The Yankees are trending up after successful road trip: ‘We are moving in the right direction’

Despite a disheartening loss to the Baltimore Orioles 4-3 on Tursday’s series finale, in which the home team took advantage of the extra-inning rule that puts a runner on second base, the New York Yankees look like a different team than the one who recently had a five-game losing streak.

The Yankees went 5-3 on their eight-game trip, starting pitchers that began the year being battered are now finding their stride (most notably Corey Kluber and Domingo German), the relief corps have performed admirably, and the offense, slowly but surely, is heating up.

“Obviously, when you go out on a road trip and have a winning record like that, certainly that’s good,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone told Betelhem Ashame of MLB.com. “But we also know that there’s a game or two that — one thing here, one thing there — all of a sudden, it’s a special trip. So I feel like we’re moving in the right direction. The offense is collectively having better at-bats, even though we got shut down a little bit today. And we continue to pitch really well.”

Before Thursday game against the O’s, the Yankees had the best collective ERA in the American League, with a 3.24 mark. The hurlers covered 70 2/3 frames during the road trip, with a sparkling 2.67 ERA and 70 strikeouts. Simply put, the pitching has been awesome.

The Yankees are looking better and better with each passing day

Left-hander Jordan Montgomery didn’t quite have his best swing-and-miss stuff, but he did cover five innings while allowing just a couple of runs on Thursday.

“Frankly, [in a] long season where you gotta lean on starters during everyday stretches, you can’t just run to the best matchup in the bullpen in the middle of the game every time,” Boone said. “I want these starters to be able to push themselves through some situations.”

Even dormant sluggers such as Giancarlo Stanton and Gleyber Torres are waking up for the Yankees. The former has been hitting homers by bunches in the last few games, and while the latter hasn’t left the yard yet, he will, eventually, and posted a .313 batting average on the road trip.

The best is yet to come for the Yankees.