The New York Yankees suffered a soul-crushing loss on Thursday night against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field. They were one strike away from taking a commanding 3-0 lead in the American League Championship Series.
Instead, Lane Thomas roped a long double, Jhonkensy Noel tied the game with a two-run homer in the ninth, and David Fry won it for the Guards with another two-run blast in the bottom of the tenth.
As a result, the Yankees are still in front, but 2-1 instead of 3-0. They will try to win that third game in the series on Friday in the same venue, with Luis Gil facing Gavin Williams.
Friday should be the day in which we finally see starter Marcus Stroman pitch in some capacity, whether it is as a traditional one-inning reliever or as a multi-inning guy. Why? Because the Yankees bullpen isn’t in very good shape right now.
The Yankees need some innings from Stroman
For starters, Weaver threw 20 pitches in his blown save. Tommy Kahnle accumulated 26, and Tim Mayza had 22. Clay Holmes (eight pitches) should be available, but there is not much more beyond him and perhaps Tim Hill and Jake Cousins. Ian Hamilton came out of last night’s game with an injury, too.
It appears, unless Gil somehow throws seven or eight innings (unlikely, to say the least), that the Yankees will have no choice but to use Stroman on Friday, probably for multiple innings. This is exactly why they included him on the ALCS roster.
Stroman, the Yankees’ $37 million free agent this past offseason, is a capable pitcher but did not show his best form to close out the regular season. His 4.31 ERA in 154.2 innings was decent, but he had a 5.98 ERA in the second half and a horrible 8.80 mark in September.
There is a reason why the Yankees haven’t used him to this point, but they knew that Game 4 of the ALCS was probably the best spot to ask some innings from him. Will he deliver a solid performance?
