It wouldn’t be far-fetched to say the Yankees hit rock bottom on Tuesday. A horrid start to the season was made worse in the series opener against the Orioles, when they dropped a sixth straight game and fell to 8-16 on the early season. To add insult to injury, one of their best hitters, Alex Rodriguez, landed on the 15-day DL with a hamstring strain. Then Wednesday happened, and the Yankees actually won a game, 7-0.
The Yankees followed up their lowest point in the season with one of their highest, playing a clean and inspiring game of baseball. Sure, a few of their runs came on a pair of misplays and an error, but those seven runs were still more than they scored in all but four games this season. That may be equally upsetting as it is inspiring, but it’s better than nothing.
The best story of the night was CC Sabathia’s stellar outing, who may be “back.” Okay, his high-80s fastball is a far cry from the high-90s heater he used to throw, so Sabathia will never really be “back.” But the Yankees’ former ace pitched like their current one on Wednesday, stopping the team’s losing streak with seven smooth shutout innings. He struck out a season-high six batters and did exactly what the Yankees needed. Sabathia has blown away expectations thus far, and the Bombers must be thrilled. He now has a 3.81 ERA on the season, and has yet to give up more than three runs in a start. Sabathia has done all the Yankees could have asked for—kept them in games.
THE PLAY: Brian McCann singles in Brett Gardner (.128 WPA)
McCann managed to do something right here that hasn’t happened a whole lot lately: extend a Yankees league. Finally, CC Sabathia was able to pitch without knowing in the back of his mind that a single bad pitch could tie the game up. Finally, McCann was able to provide a small safety net for the Yankees. This was a hit, and a game, that McCann really needed, breaking an eight game RBI drought.
TOP PERFORMERS
Yankees: CC Sabathia (7.0 IP, 0 R, 6 H, 2 BB, 6 K, W)
Orioles: Manny Machado (2-4, 2 2B)
NOTES
X-rays on Brett Gardner negative, but Girardi says he's concerned
— Ryan Hatch (@ryanhatch) May 5, 2016
Well, I guess the Yankees will never truly have a ‘clean’ win. Gardner should be fine, though he could end up with some swelling and a day-to-day tag after taking a pitch off his elbow late in Wednesday’s game. The ball appeared to hit him in between the elbow and the pad, so Gardner may have lucked out a bit. He left the game the following inning, though that may be more because of a 7-0 lead than it was concern over a serious injury.
THE HIGHLIGHT
Something good happened? Yes, for the first time in a while things broke right for the Yankees on a sacrifice fly to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the sixth. The run may have instead been an out had Adam Jones been able to cleanly get a throw to the cut off man, but a problem in the transfer allowed Jacoby Ellsbury to score on a sac fly from Carlos Beltran.
UP NEXT
The Yankees will look to win just their third series of the season in the rubber game of on Thursday. The Yankees will follow old-ace CC Sabathia with present-ace Masahiro Tanaka, who has a 2.87 ERA on the season. Pitching for Baltimore is future-ace Kevin Gausman, the owner of a 2.45 ERA over two excellent starts in 2016. Gausman isn’t a southpaw, which is nice.