Yankees and Tribe Split 2-2: What’s Next for Both Teams?

One big series out of the way for the Yankees, now two more are on the horizon. How will they fare in the coming weeks? And what about the Tribe?

The Tribe continues to give the New York Yankees trouble in the regular season. Managing a 2-2 split at the Stadium, the Indians brought their season series with the Bombers to 4-3, making them one of the only opponents of the Yanks to best them in a season series thus far in 2019.

The Indians have, for years now, given the Yankees trouble in the regular season with the powerful top of the order they always seem to have and this weekend was no different. Jose Ramirez pounded the Bombers again for a line of 6 for 11 with 3 home runs and 7 runs driven in (only playing in 3 of the 4 games).

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Mike Clevinger also had his way with the Yanks on the defensive side recording 10 strikeouts in 5 frames to notch the win and bring his season line to 8-2 with a 3.11 ERA.

The Yanks have been one of the better home teams this year, but a split here with the Trieb should give Terry Francona‘s bunch a lot of confidence heading into a potential playoff series with the presumed #1 seeded Yankees come October.

The Tribe hasn’t had much success against the Bombers in recent playoff memory (the 2-0 blown series lead in 2017 comes to mind), but being as hot as they are at the moment and how well their newfound pitching talent since the last time they saw the Yanks in October (Clevinger, Bieber, Civale, and Plesac) has developed, this team can hang with the mighty Yankees; don’t make any mistake about it.

On the flip side, the Yankees now face one of the toughest stretches of the season (and probably the last) as they head out West and face 19 of their next 25 games away from The Stadium. Don’t get me wrong, the Yankees have been great wherever they play this year, but they haven’t had to venture too far from The Bronx since late April when they took their first West trip to LA, San Fran, and Phoenix.

That stretch was a breeze for them as they came back home 6-3 from that road trip, but now they go up against a fantastic pitching club in the Oakland A’s who beat them up in the regular season last year at the Coliseum, and the #1 Dodgers in Cody Bellinger‘s house to face ( I would assume) Ryu and Kershaw at some point in that series (Buehler is pitching Wednesday).

Then they go to Seattle where (although they’re a bad team) they can hit home runs and they’ll be catching the Yanks off two huge series. I wouldn’t be surprised if they won the Oakland and LA series and lost the Seattle one.

The Yanks have been beating up on contenders all year outside of the Indians and (at least for their first series in Houston) the Astros. Oakland and LA should be a lot of fun with a boatload of home runs, but after this week, we’ll have a solid foundation on what this Yankees team can do in a postseason situation.