Yankees: Have they turned a corner after sweeping the Red Sox?

The Yankees were a mess heading into this week’s two-game series against the defending champion Red Sox, but after sweeping their biggest rivals have they turned a corner?

The Yankees finally won a series at home after losing their first three of the season to the Orioles, Tigers and Whtie Sox, three teams who lost at least 98 games a season ago. The Red Sox entered the Bronx scuffling even more than the Yanks and their woes continued on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In the series opener, James Paxton delivered one of the best starts you’ll see all season pitching 8 shutout innings, and striking out 12, only allowing two hits. Paxton was coming off a pair of poor starts against Baltimore and Houston but he stepped up big time during his first taste of the best rivalry in sports.

The Yankee offense for once actually got to Boston’s ace Chris Sale scoring four runs on seven hits in five innings. Clint Frazier continued his hot hitting and took Sale deep for a solo home run and later on in the game against the Boston bullpen, Mike Tauchman blew things open with a three-run home run for the first of his career. The story, however, was Paxton who showed the Red Sox and the rest of baseball that he has the potential to be one of the top aces in the game.

On Wednesday the Yankees got off to a slow start and were once again dominated by former Bomber Nate Eovaldi over six innings of one-run ball. Like Sale, Eovaldi entered the game with an ERA above 8.00 but it seems all he needed was to face his former club to turn things around. J.A. Happ took the mound for the Yanks and had his best start of the year going 6.1 IP allowing three earned and striking out four.

Happ let up two early home runs (that continues to be an issue for him) but he bounced back nicely and gave the Yankees some much-needed length. The offense obviously struggled against Eovaldi but they did make him throw over 100 pitches through six innings so Alex Cora was forced to go tot he pen tog et the final nine outs.

In the seventh, Clint Frazier picked up his third hit of the game to start a rally which was followed by a pair of walks from Tauchman and Austin Romine to load the bases and set the stage for Brett Gardner. Against Ryan Brasier Gardy fell behind 0-2 quickly before getting a fastball right down the middle that he deposited into the short porch in right to give the Yanks a 5-3 lead and send the Stadium crowd into a complete frenzy.

It was a big mistake pitch by Brasier but a massive blow from Gardner for career home run #100. Gardy had really gotten off to a slow start and many fans including myself have been pleading for him to be lowered in the lineup, but after Wednesday’s slam that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime soon. The bullpen got back on track as Tommy Kahnle, Adam Ottavino, and Aroldis Chapman closed the door to secure the sweep and lower Boston’s record to 6-13 which is hard to fathom.

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The Yanks are now back in second place, just 5.5 back of the 14-4 Rays and will start a four-game weekend series against the Royals tonight. Sweeping Boston is always nice but these past two wins won’t mean a thing if they drop another series at home to a team that has no business beating them. Even with all the injuries, they need to get the job done and at least take 3 of 4 this weekend before we can definitively say they’ve turned a corner.

This team is still a ways away from being back at full strength but they have enough depth to overcome all the injuries and win ball games with the 25 men they have right now. And by the end of the weekend, help may arrive in the form of Gary Sanchez as Sunday will mark the first day he is eligible to come off the IL from his calf strain.

Getting Sanchez back would be huge because prior to going down no one in the Yankees lineup was more productive (.268, 6 HR, 11 RBI). With the bullpen and the rotation starting to come along the offense could really use his bat back in the heart of the order because when he’s swinging it well he can carry this team to a win on his own.