Let's Get A Rhythm Going Here

  For the first time since about a week, the Yankees put together a encouraging outing , but the win wasn't the prettiest game to sit through as a fan. If it wasn't for the bullpen and Taillon's bounce back effort in Game 1 of this series against Atlanta after a rocky start in his last outing against the Jays, the Yankees would have had a tough time winning the game. Either way, a win is a win, as the Yankees improve to a 6- 10 record on the season thus far.

  Last night, the Yanks got the win by edging out the Braves in 3-1  win at Yankees Stadium.

  The Yanks desperately needed the win after a rocky start to season, but it is no excuse to play nine innings of baseball and only manage to put a 3-1 spot on the scoreboard when it was all said and done. The Yankees need to wake up offensively because pitching is not the only part of baseball, this team needs their bats and defense to be on point in every game. Every part of this baseball team needs to be clicking, as it would be the only way that this organization would grow in the win column of their playbook in 2021.

  In the Tuesday night ballgame, Aaron Boone and his team were aiming to turn around their early season troubles. For the most part, the Yanks  did what they could to win the game in a rally fashion.

  Since the Yankees signed the Taillon, the Tuesday night outing was the most encouraging outing he has pitched in, as he threw a 5-inning game since returning to a major league mound. It had to encouraging for Taillon to see that he was progressing, and he had to be proud to be pitching well in front of his long time friend in Yankee ace Gerrit Cole. 

  Taillon pitched a solid outing that bounced back from that awkward non-competitive 3 2/3-innings of work against the Blue Jays, the Yankees right-hander turned the outing against the Braves into his sharpest outing since putting back on a baseball uniform. He managed to limit Atlanta's to one run on four hits over five innings.

  As a side note, during last night's game, it was announced that Cole had earned the Montefiore Player of the Week title. In his last two outings, he pitched to a 2.19 ERA in 12.1 innings of work. In his outings so far, the Yankee ace accumulated to a 1/18 (base-on-ball/strikes) and has collected a  .182-opponent average.

  The Montifore player of the week had to be impressive with what he was seeing from the Yankee dugout, as he watched his long time Pirates teammate throw his best start of the season.

  Now, let's talk about how the game went down, shall we ?

  Going into last night's game, the Yankees needed to find a way to break out of a 15-game losing skid, and that they did. How did they do it? Well, for the most part, they caught a couple breaks in the game. Aaron Hicks scored on Nate Jones’ eighth-inning wild pitch and Mike Ford worked a bases-loaded walk to force in a run as the Yankees snapped their five-game skid. 

  Gio Urshela, who belted a solo homer to dead center field that tied the game at 1 in the fifth had this to say about the game: 

"I really think it's important to get the confidence back and try to keep that good for the rest of the season."  

    Fans who watched the game know by all means that it was an overall boring game to watch because it had a slow start to the match, but Hicks got things going to start a rally as he came off the bench work a pinch-hit walk situation. DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge teed off singles to send Tyler Matzek packing into the visitor's dugout at Yankees Stadium. As Matzek left the field, the Yanks loaded the bases with no outs and were looking to capitalize. Clint Frazier stepped into the batter's box as a pinch-hitter for Brett Gardner, and it was just the Yankees' luck that Jones throw an 0-1 slider that went towards the backstop.

  Two batter's later, Mike Ford who had been called up from the alternate training site to fill the void at first base after Jay Bruce announced his retirement, was given a sort of pass from Atlanta's pitching. Ford didn't even need to tune up his swing motion, all he did was watch four baseball get pitch outside the strike zone. This in turn forced in a run and gave Aroldis Chapman a day to pitch in the ninth.

  All and all, that is how the Yankees improved their wins-lost record to 6-10, but they have a lot of ground to cover to be a real threat in their division this season.

  Turning to game two of this series, manager Aaron Boone will send RHP Corey Kluber to the mound. Like Taillon, when the Yankees signed RHP Corey Kluber, they knew that they would have to easy the righty back into pitching deep games. As the Yanks have already seen that Taillon could go through five innings in game one against Atlanta, Kluber has yet to prove that he too can pitch five innings of good baseball.

  Yankee fans, can you imagine when the team gets consistency out of both Taillon and Kluber?

  Atlanta will counter Kluber with RHP Ian Anderson. Anderson allowed three homers in his final Spring Training start and he surrendered a .448 slugging percentage through his first three starts of the 2021 regular season. He allowed a total of one home run over 51-innings pitched and gave up a .230 slugging percentage over a total of 10 starts (which includes the playoffs) last year.

  Tune into the game to find out if Corey Kluber and the Yankees could get another streak going after losing their last streak they had going against the Baltimore birds to start the season. 

  Here is a recap of last night's game from ESPN: