Last night was a good night for the Yankees, seeing the team put up five runs in the first paired with a good Gerrit Cole outing to cruise to a 9-2 win over the Diamondbacks. The club also picked up a game on the Rays as the AL East leaders dropped the opener of their series to the Red Sox. Tonight, the Yankees have two goals: get the win to stay in a hypothetically-competitive division race (all but necessary since Tampa Bay avenged the loss with a 2-1 win over Boston this afternoon), and build
out a little more breathing room in the Cy Young race.
Dylan Cease had his worst start of the year on Friday for the Blue Jays, going just 2.2 innings and walking six. He and today’s Yankee starter Cam Schlittler have had a heavyweight bout atop the Cy leaderboard all year, and while Cam’s pulled away a bit in recent weeks, he can start to put the finishing touches on his case tonight. He hasn’t allowed more than one earned run in a start since August 3rd (!!), making us all maybe expect a bit too much from the righty who can seemingly do no wrong. Schlittler has thrown 45 innings across those aforementioned seven starts, so he’s not a five-and-fly guy, and his 1.00 ERA in that stretch is just…a farce.
Brandon Pfaadt is having the best season of his young career, with a 3.77 ERA and 4.06 FIP that are both significant steps forward after a pretty lost 2025. He doesn’t strike many men out though, and a 45 percent ground ball rate means heavy sinking fastballs in the zone. There will be pitches to hit from Pfaadt; you just need to be able to elevate them.
Ben Rice had himself a fantastic game cleaning up last night and is bumped up to the leadoff spot tonight, with
Luis García Jr. getting the nod over Paul Goldschmidt at first base. Spencer Jones reportedly has a sore left foot, which means we get José Caballero in center, and I’m going to withhold comment on that decision for now.
It’s an 8:10pm Eastern start but not a national broadcast, this one’s on YES. The Diamondbacks will be celebrating their 2001 World Series championship throughout the evening, which seems kind of lame because you can’t really “win” a championship when you didn’t have an opponent.
How to watch
Location: Chase Field – Phoenix, AZ
First pitch: 8:10 pm ET
TV broadcast: YES, DBACKS.TV
Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280 (NYY) | Arizona Sports 98.7 FM, La Campesina 101.9 FM & 860 AM (AZ)
Streaming: Gotham Sports App, MLB.tv (out-of-market only)
For updates, follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.
Join the conversation!
Sign up for a user account and get:
- Fewer ads
- Create community posts
- Comment on articles, community posts
- Rec comments, community posts
- New, improved notifications system!
Download the SB Nation app on iOS or Android.
