2 days Ago By Joshua Diemert
Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images The Yankees welcome the Snakes to town, and we’re not foolin’. The Yankees got off to just about the best possible start to the season, sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers right out of town. Their opening run against the National League continues tonight, with the 2023 NL champions coming to the Bronx in the Arizona Diamondbacks.
‘Zona split the first four games of their season with the Cubs, and send their biggest free agent splash to the hill to kick off this three-game set. All times below are Eastern.Tuesday: Will Warren vs.
Corbin Burnes (7:05pm ET)After a one-year stint with the Orioles that netted an All-Star appearance and a fifth-place Cy Young finish, Burnes inked a six-year, $210 million contract with the Diamondbacks, lending some veteran influence to a team with a lot of young talent. The 30-year old is making his first start in..
.erm, Arizona Gray, and brings his six-pitch mix to bear against a hot Yankee lineup. This will be his fourth start against the Yankees, and he owns a 1.
42 ERA against the club, with 22 strikeouts in 19 innings.Will Warren will counter, looking to build off a promising spring training. He was quite dreadful in the five starts he was called upon to make last year, walking too many men and being bit by the home run ball.
In Grapefruit League play he was able to lower his walk rate to something more sustainable for MLB play, but the home runs continued to bug him. Keeping the ball in the park is priority #1 for Warren; if he can do that this run of MLB starts he’ll get should turn out ok.Wednesday: Carlos Rodón vs.
Zac Gallen (7:05pm ET)With the off days the Yankees had on Friday and Monday, they can skip over Carlos Carrasco and return Opening day starter Rodón to the hill. Carlos was sharp in his outing against the Brewers, allowing just one run across 5.1 innings before running out of gas in the sixth inning.
The team will take that start every time, especially as the left-hander looks to build some consistency after two volatile seasons.Gallen was not quite so lucky in his first start of the year, getting banged around by the Cubs and lasting just four innings — indeed, he allowed four runs, four walks, and struck out just four. Gallen’s better than that, but he’s running into a lineup that’s focused and apparently using voodoo sticks at the plate, so improvement will have to come quickly or that bad ERA is going to get worse.
Thursday: Carlos Carrasco vs. Merrill Kelly (7:05pm ET)Cookie gets his first start of the season in the series finale, filling out the fifth slot in the Yankee rotation. He won the job with a 1.
69 ERA in 16.0 spring innings, and could be a stabilizing influence to a rotation that’s lost 3/5ths of its original membership to injury. He did get smacked around in a relief appearance Saturday against Milwaukee, allowing three earned runs and five hits across two innings of mop-up work.
Hopefully he’s better to close out this series.The 36-year-old Kelly has been the best in the Snakes’ rotation this first run through, mirroring Rodón’s 5.1 inning, one-run performance.
He got a little lucky though, walking four while striking out just one, and if the Yankee performance against the Brewers is anything to go off of, that line is a whole lot of risk for a starter. Controlling the strike zone against the likes of Aaron Judge is paramount in normal times, much less when the club’s hot and running on high confidence like right now..
