The Cole Train Made a Stop in Cleveland, Now it is Tanaka Time

You can say that the Yankees have never spent $324 million better than spending big on Gerrit Cole. In his first playoff appearance in the Yankee road grays, Gerrit Cole sent a message, "The Yankees are still a force to be reckoned with." There was some doubt entering the game given the team the Yankees were facing and Yankees lackluster performance down the stretch, but the Yankees put up 12 runs in the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Game 1 was billed as a classic pitcher's duel but only one ace showed up. 

The Yankees set the tone early, 4 pitches early, as DJ LeMahieu led the game off with a single and Aaron Judge took the first pitch that he saw out of the park for a 2-0 Yankee lead. 2-0 was just the start for the Bombers offense as Gleyber Torres would go yard in a perfect day at the plate. Luke Voit had an RBI double, Brett Gardner had 3 RBI with a double and a home run, and Giancarlo Stanton added an absolute missile of a home run in the ninth inning. The Yankees "flipped the switch" as many fans had been clamoring for. A rough end to the regular season was quickly forgotten tonight as the Bronx Bombers took their potent offense on the road and won Game 1 12-3. 

The Yankees will have to get back to work Wednesday night against Cleveland's Carlos Carrasco. Carrasco rounded into form in September with a 1.73 ERA and a .229 opponent batting average in his last 4 starts/26 innings pitched. Carrasco faced the Yankees in the 2017 ALDS and did not factor in the decision as the Yankees won on a Greg Bird solo home run off of Andrew Miller. Carrasco did shut down the Yankee offense for 5.2 innings and struck out 7 in the raucous Yankee Stadium environment. The Yankees counter with Masahiro Tanaka or "Playoff Tanaka" as he is known when the calendar enters late September and October. 

Tanaka finished the month of September with a 3.09 ERA and a .221 opponent batting average in his final 23.1 innings pitched. Tanaka seems to take his game to a new level in the postseason as he has a career 1.76 ERA in 46 postseason innings. The Yankees will need Tanaka to continue his postseason prowess in order to close out the Indians and move onto the ALDS. If Tanaka stumbles, a rested bullpen awaits in right center field to put out any potential fires. 

The Yankee offense clearly exploded for 12 runs against a playoff novice in Shane Bieber. A veteran starter in Carrasco could pose a different challenge for the Yankees. Carrasco has a higher average velocity on his fastballs compared to Bieber and Carrasco has a more efficient spin rate on his curveball as opposed to Bieber's. Bieber struggled to locate his breaking stuff which helped the Yankees crush his near league average fastball. The Yankee approach should be similar to what we saw on Tuesday but I do not expect Carrasco's stuff to be as non-competitive as Bieber's was. 

This is a crucial game and one that the Yankees should treat as an elimination game. The lack of off days in the ALDS and ALCS will be a challenge if they reach those games. A Game 2 win and an elimination of Cleveland would help the Yankees rest and prepare for their next opponent. Also a winner take all Game 3 is something that many Yankee fans would not appreciate this early on in an October journey that is supposed to end with a trophy. 

Statistics courtesy of BaseballReference.com, BaseballSavant.com and Fangraphs.com 

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