Yanks Go Yard Series Preview: Orioles-Yankees (4/12-4/14)

The New York Yankees’ first road trip of the season ended a lot quicker than most fans expected and they had mother nature to thank for it. After scoring 42 runs in their last 3 games, the Bronx Bombers had to sit in a clubhouse for the last 48 hours in Cleveland. Now, mother nature might have actually given the Bronx Bombers a little bit of a break. Despite the rust that will probably go to the Yankee bats, they got the chance to skip the starts of both Ivan Nova and Phil Hughes, who did not have impressive starts for the Yankees in Detroit. That being said, the Yankees still finished 3-2 on the road trip and were able to get back to .500 on the season (4-4). This sets up a re-match of last year’s ALDS.

is having a historic start to 2013 with six home runs in 9 games. Can he keep up his power surge at Yankee Stadium this weekend?(Photo Credit: Joy R. Absalon-USA TODAY Sports)

The great thing about this weekend’s matchup with the Baltimore Orioles is that each team is going to throw their starters from Games 1-3 of the postseason series a year ago. The Orioles will throw Miguel Gonzalez, Jason Hammel, and Wei-Yin Chen while the Yankees will throw C.C Sabathia, Andy Pettitte, and Hiroki Kuroda. Baltimore has had a solid start to their first extended road trip of 2013 by defeating the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park two games out of three. This is a team that most prognosticators have at the bottom of the division because they feel their stellar record in one-run games last season can’t carry over into this season.

So far, the story of the Orioles in 2013 has been first baseman Chris Davis. Davis is off to a remarkable start to his 2013 season with his .400 batting average, six home runs and 19 RBI’s in just 9 games! Davis is locked in at the plate and is the major cog for a team that is averaging five runs per game through the first nine games. Adam Jones is picking up where he left off in 2012 as well hitting .462 with 11 runs so far. That being said, Baltimore will need solid pitching to contend once again in the division. The pitching has not been great so far as the team has a ERA of 4.63 (19th in the MLB).

Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, we were not able to conduct a Yanks Go Yard series preview show for this series. We will be back Sunday night to preview the Yankees-Diamondbacks series that will start on Tuesday night. My prediction for this series is the Yankees will take two games out of three with the Orioles winning Saturday afternoon against Kuroda. Kuroda looked okay against Cleveland after his bad first inning, but I still don’t think he is 100% healthy and the Orioles’ bats can take advantage of that. However, I do expect this series to have three close games and reflect the series from last October that had five nail-biting games to decide who would lose to the Tigers in that ALCS.