The New York Yankees Stalled in Washington but Lead in the AL East

The New York Yankees and Washington Nationals played to a 3-3 tie in Nationals Park on Tuesday night before inclement weather shut the game down in the sixth inning.

Masahiro Tanaka was on the mound for the Yankees and struggled in the early innings. He gave up a solo home run to Anthony Rendon in the first inning, followed by run scoring hits to Andrew Stevenson and Pedro Severino in the second inning to make the score 3-0.

Unfortunately, Tanaka’s home run rate is rising, as noted by Katie Sharp:

Masahiro Tanaka: 44th HR allowed since start of 2017.
That's the most HR allowed by any MLB pitcher over last 2 seasons.

— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) May 15, 2018

Tanaka has allowed the most home runs of any pitcher over the last two seasons with 57 and he is currently tied for fourth in Major League Baseball with nine.

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After the second inning, Tanaka appeared to settle down and he eventually retired the last nine batters in order.

Tyler Austin broke out of a 0-23 slump, going 2-2 with a single, a three-run homerun  and a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 3-3.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone told Brian Hoch of MLB.com:

“I always like the matchup with Tyler against a lefty,” manager Aaron Boone said. “A few really good at-bats — the single to start things, obviously the homer. Deep at-bats. That last at-bat was a real battle with Gio where he almost hit another one out, chasing them back to the wall. Really good at-bats from him in what we felt was a good matchup for him.”

Austin carried the offense on his back last night with the home run and a sacrifice fly responsible for all the Yankees’ runs.

On a day when MLB.com released it’s power rankings boosting the Yankees (28-12) to the number one spot, supplanting the Boston Red Sox (28-14), now in third place, the Yankees took over the lead in the American League East as the Oakland Athletics beat the Red Sox 5-3 Tuesday night.

The game has been rescheduled to resume play at 5:05 Wednesday afternoon and the Yankees will be even more determined to beat Washington and maintain the top spot in the standings.