Kluber Sizzles. Bronx Bombers Bomb Late. NY 8 Cleveland 0

September 18, 2021 paperbacklou 2021 0

Cory Kluber looked like the Corey Kluber of old, pitching 6 shutout innings, and the Bronx bombers showed up late, turning a 2-0 lead after 6 innings into the 8-0 blowout over Cleveland on a Friday night at Yankee Stadium.

The Yanks got homers from Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, 2 homers from Joey Gallo, and a big 3-run bomb in the 7th from Brett Gardner that put the game away at the time, giving NY a 6-0 lead.

The win combined with a Toronto loss, put the Yanks back into the second Wild Card playoff spot, a half game ahead of Toronto and a half game behind Boston which owns the #1 wild card.

“It was good for the spirit”, said Aaron Boone afterwards, in response to reporter Dan Martin asking him if it was, after all the long, down-to-the-wire games recently.

1. Kluber Sizzles

Corey Kluber had his best start of the year besides the no hitter. He dominated from the start against his former team, pitching 6 shutout innings allowing only 4 hits, striking out 4, walking 2. He threw 98 pitches.

“Klu set us up to be in good shape there with the 6 strong,” said manager Aaron Boone afterwards. “I thought his stuff was really good, and the command is getting better. I think there’s another level for him to go to, but he commanded the ball better. He was a better, more efficient strike thrower tonite, and I think his stuff ticked up — it looked like stuff was moving all over the place, which is what he’s known for — right — the movement quality of his pitches — I felt like he had that going tonite and hopefully this is another step in his progression to getting all the way back.”

“I feel like I made adjustments quicker tonite,” said Kluber afterwards. “When I didn’t execute a pitch, I think I recognized it and made the proper adjustment and kind of corrected it quicker and that was the biggest difference to me.”

2. Gallo and Judge Put Yanks Up

The Yanks clung to a 2-0 lead for most of the night – as usual – because Zach Plesac pitched well. Plesac is the nephew of former Major League reliever Dan Plesac, who was a good reliever from 1986 thru 2003, retiring at age 41. Zach Plesac is age 26 and has had an excellent start to his major league career – 22-13 3.80 coming into this game, and 10-5 4.45 on the season.

The Yanks got to him with a Joey Gallo solo homer in the 2nd, and an Aaron Judge solo homer in the bottom of the 4th.

For Gallo it was his 35th homerun. For Judge it was his 34th.

3. King Gives Pen a Big Lift

Michael King relieved Kluber and was scintillating himself for the 7th and 8th innings – pitching no-hit, shutout ball, striking out 3. King is back from injury that kept him out since injuring his finger weightlifting on July 5th. His healthy return has given the Yankee bullpen a Huge lift this week.

4. Bombers Bomb Late

Zach Plesac started to tire in the 7th. Gallo reached on an infield single and Gleyber Torres fouled off a few pitches before working a walk – a terrific at bat for Torres. Gio Urshela then singled in Gallo for a 3-0 NY lead, sending Plesac to the showers.

Nick Wittgren came in to pitch for Cleveland and Old Man Brett Gardner put the game away with a 3-run homerun to right.

The Yanks piled on in the 8th with back-to-back homers by Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo off reliever J.C. Mejia.

Etcetera

  • Aaron Judge went 2 for 4 to bounce his average back up to .288 after going 0-10 the previous 2 games. He is slashing 35-85-.288 (.372 , .911 OPS)
  • Joey Gallo went 3-4 to raise his average to .204.
  • Luis Severino was reported to be “really sharp” in two innings of live batting practice today, according to manager Aaron Boone.
  • In the minor leagues, Anthony Volpe hit his 27th homerun of the season in A ball.

The Boxscore

https://www.espn.com/mlb/boxscore/_/gameId/401229256

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