Tasked with building on the Yankees’ momentum from Saturday night’s memorable win, Marcus Stroman delivered in the series finale from Atlanta. The 34-year-old righty pitched extremely well from start to finish, and New York led this one from cover to cover after a couple of first-inning runs. Although the final score was a save situation, it honestly never felt like they gave the Braves much of a shot, winning it 4-2 in a game that didn’t really feel that close.
You know, when they say you couldn’t
have asked for anything more out of someone? Such a statement properly defines Stroman’s outstanding performance, exceeding every expectation, especially when you account for his recent woes and how well the Braves' offense had been performing in this series. The Yankee veteran had a plan, and he executed it cleanly, without your usual ideal ratio of groundouts to flyouts, getting six outs on the ground and five through the air. What stood out from Stroman is how he attacked Braves hitters with a bit of a different mindset.
Usually, Stroman is sinker-heavy against hitters from both sides of the plate, but facing an Atlanta lineup with essentially two-thirds left-handed hitters, Stroman reserved the sinker almost exclusively to righties, with a 14-percent usage against lefties, only his fourth-most-used pitch against them. Lefties got increased usage of cutters, splitters, and slurves, and—as per usual—all of his 11 splitters were thrown to left-handed hitters.
With this approach, Stroman managed to shut down the Braves’ lineup for five straight innings, keeping the Yankees in a game in which the offense did just okay, in comparison with the previous two. The only damage done against Stroman came in the bottom of the sixth, when Olson got him for a solo shot.
Sometimes you’ll respect a hitter enough to stay away from him consistently and get punished all the same. Stroman threw three straight balls after Olson fouled a first-pitch curve he tried to steal a strike one on, and then he was able to pull his hands in a lot to drive a cutter in and off the plate out of the park on 442-foot shot that landed above the Chophouse in right field. But for as majestic as it was, no one was on base, rendering it a mere solo shot.
Also highlighting the lack of trust in the sinker, he only threw one of them in three at-bats against Olson, with the caveat that in one of them, he needed and was able to induce an inning-ending double play.
One aspect of Stroman’s performance that cannot be understated is the comfort of pitching with a multirun lead from start to finish. The Yankees got on the board early with two in the first, courtesy of an Aaron Judge home run—the 351st of his career, tying him with Alex Rodriguez for sixth in franchise history—followed by a string of singles, which meant that every single pitch Stroman threw, he did it with the lead.
The Yankees added some late insurance with a little help from some erratic Braves pitching. Giancarlo Stanton led off the seventh with a single, and then a sequence of walk, walk, and hit-by-pitch resulted in a third run. Had the offense been more proficient in that spot, it could’ve blown the game wide open, but that wasn’t the case, and ultimately it didn’t need to be. Judge got involved in the game’s fourth run, coming around to score on a Jazz Chisholm Jr. double in the seventh.
It wasn’t your most successful offensive performance, but like we saw on Saturday, there is more than one way to win a baseball game. You wouldn’t necessarily expect the one with crisp pitching to come with this version of Stroman on the mound against the Braves, but that’s exactly what we got, and the bullpen also handled things properly.
Those two insurance runs loomed large once Ronald Acuña Jr. hit the Braves' second solo shot of the game in the ninth. It’s hard to tell what it is, but it’s much more comfortable seeing Devin Williams’ save attempts with a three-run lead. He shook off Acuña’s majestic 456-foot blast and retired the next three batters in order, nailing down the victory with his 14th save of 2025.
Next up for the Bombers is another huge series in Toronto, who the Yankees still trail by three games in the AL East with the Blue Jays sweeping the Giants to begin the second half. New York will be seeking vengeance on those Jays for the four-game sweep a month ago that vaulted Toronto past the Yanks and into first place in the AL East. It sounds like both Cam Schlittler and Max Fried will be able to make those starts at the Rogers Centre after having to skip this set in Atlanta due to some ailments. Carlos Rodón will get us started in game one tomorrow night against Kevin Gausman at 7:07pm ET.
Box score
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