The Yankees are now in first place in the American League East and 14 games above.
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Although veteran hurler CC Sabathia has only won one of his 11 most recent starts, his pitching early in the contest looked extremely impressive. While Teixeira nurses a leg injury, Bird has been as indispensable as anyone in the Yankees’ lineup. First off – he had his swing-and-miss stuff working.
Eovaldi jumped ahead of Trevor Plouffe, 0-2, then watched Plouffe dribble a ball toward third that went for an infield single to scored Dozier for a 3-2 Twins lead. Two batters later, Twins shortstop Eduardo Escobar singled to end Sabathia’s bid for a no hitter. He gave up three more runs in the seventh before departing from the game with two out in that inning. He connected twice off Ervin Santana, who fell to 0-8 in his last 11 starts against New York. He also had two key hits last night, and an extra-inning double off the bench on Monday.
A matinee crowd of 38,086 fans witnessed Eovaldi take a flawless game into the sixth inning, retiring the first 16 batters he faced before hitting turbulence. A single by Chase Headley and walks to Brendan Ryan and Brett Gardner loaded the bases.
“I’ve been stinking up the joint here for about a few weeks now, so that one felt good”, A-Rod said. The home run came after Rodriguez’s streak of 1 for 27 at bats. I’ll be posting analysis, observations and general missives throughout the game.
The rookie got a curtain call from the crowd at Yankees Stadium after his second blast.
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New York Yankees’ Greg Bird, right, is greeted by third base coach Joe Espada (54) as he rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run against the Minnesota Twins during the sixth inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, August 19, 2015, in New York. Oh, and the Yankees took a series sweep against the Twins, which is pretty neat. It felt over-the-top at the time, but it was nothing compared to the associations being made after today’s game: Bird is Lou Gehrig; Mark Teixeira is Wally Pipp. They then remain home for another week with four games with the Cleveland and three with Houston.
