Yanks Go Yard 2015 Series Preview Show Rewind: Red Sox-Yankees (4/10-4/12)

On this episode of the Yanks Go Yard Series Preview Show, brought to you by KNODA.com, I started off the show by talking about the New York Yankees losing their first series of the season to the Toronto Blue Jays. In this series, Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia had their struggles on the mound (even though Sabathia had eight strikeouts), but Michael Pineda had a good opener in Wednesday’s game.

While Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, and Brett Gardner hit their first home runs, it was still a New York offense that struggled for most of the series to come up with the big hit. Three of New York’s eight runs came in the bottom of the eighth inning on Wednesday due in part to bad control from the Toronto relievers (Aaron Loup and Brett Cecil). However, give Chase Headley credit for coming up with the game-winning hit.

Before we began our Red Sox talk, I also talked about Yankees outfield prospect Ramon Flores, who hit for the cycle on opening night for the Scranton Wilkes-Barre Railriders (triple-A) against the Syracuse Chiefs. He went 5-for-5 and scored three runs in the 8-3 win.

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Now, the New York Yankees get set to conclude their opening six-game homestand against their bitter rivals, the Boston Red Sox. Boston recently made news when they signed starting pitcher Rick Porcello to a four-year, $82.5 million contract extension before he made his first start Wednesday (lost 4-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies).

The Red Sox took two of three from Philadelphia in their opening series at Citizens Bank Park. While most of the offseason was focused on the lack of an ace in their rotation (for now), the Boston bats stole the show in the opening series, including four home runs off of Cole Hamels on Opening Day from two players, Hanley Ramirez and Dustin Pedroia. Plus, the Red Sox will be getting starting pitcher Joe Kelly back from a biceps injury on Saturday and Koji Uehara will make a rehab appearance on Saturday down at low-A Greenville and could be closing games at Fenway very soon.

To help me preview the latest installment of the rivalry, I talked with Sean Penney, a writer over at BoSox Injection, to get his thoughts on the Porcello extension and to get his takeaways from Boston’s first series of the season. Here are the topics we discussed heading into this series:

Did Boston make the right decision in extending Porcello?
Is the bullpen Boston’s biggest concern (other than the rotation)
Pitching Matchup Breakdown
Wade Miley (Friday’s Boston starter) has thrown 200+ innings each of the last two seasons
Nathan Eovaldi (Friday’s Yankees starter) looking to build on an impressive spring
Why Friday night could be a breakout night for Pablo Sandoval
Joe Kelly (Saturday’s Red Sox starter) and his issue with the walks
What to expect in Adam Warren’s first start Saturday
Was Clay Buchholz’s (Sunday’s Red Sox starter) more impressive Monday because it was the Phillies?
Why I am not panicking after Masahiro Tanaka’s (Sunday’s Yankees start) first start of 2015?
Red Sox hitters to watch: (Sean: Mike Napoli, Ricky: Pablo Sandoval)
Yankees hitters to watch: Jacoby Ellsbury and Brian McCann
How will the Red Sox handle having a lot of outfielders?
Is this the year for Xander Bogaerts?

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