Coming off a 3-1 series win over the Toronto Blue Jays this week, the Yankees will now travel to Cincinnati to take on the Reds, for a three-game series that starts Friday at Great American Ball Park.
Here are the five things to watch for in the series:
1. Can Yankees continue to cut into Rays’ lead?
After splitting their four-game series with the Rays this past weekend, the Yanks entered Monday eight games back of Tampa Bay in the AL East. With their series win over Toronto and the Mets’ series win over the Rays, the Yankees have now seen that lead shrink to 6.5 games.
The Reds enter Friday five games below .500 including 5-5 in their last 10 games. The Yankees are the superior team, but that doesn’t mean they can play down to their opponent. The Reds have sneaky good players on their roster including Tyler Stephenson, Jonathan India, Sunday’s starter Hunter Greene, and Alexis Diaz, the brother of Edwin.
The Yankees should take at least two of three in this series to keep their momentum going. Tampa Bay will return home to host the Milwaukee Brewers so if the Yankees have any hopes of gaining more ground this weekend they’ll need to take care of business.
2. Will Aaron Judge continue his MVP-like stretch?
The 2022 AL MVP is on a tear. Since returning from the IL (10 games), Judge is hitting .324 with six home runs and 14 RBI. Against the Blue Jays, he went 6-for-14 with four home runs and seven RBI.
Just like last season, Judge has transformed this Yankees lineup. Now that the MVP and Harrison Bader have returned from injury, the pressure Yanks starters faced in trying to keep runs off the board has been lessened. And as seen in the series against the Rays, no lead is safe as long as the captain is in the lineup.
And just for fun. In a very small sample size (five games), Judge is hitting 3-for-15 with one home run in his career against the Reds. In one game at Great American Ball Park, Judge is 1-for-3 with a walk and a strikeout.
Those numbers could easily change for Judge as GABP has given up the most home runs so far this season with 143.
3. How healthy is the bullpen?
The Yankees haven’t had a day off since May 4, and they won’t get another one until after their weekend series with the Reds. What that means is Aaron Boone’s bullpen is spent.
The four-game set with Toronto was especially taxing. Domingo German’s ejection on Tuesday forced the bullpen to get 18 outs and the team can’t replace him on the roster during his suspension. Ian Hamilton injured his groin in that game and will now be lost for at least four weeks.
They also went into the 10th inning on Wednesday and the bullpen had to get nine outs in Thursday’s series finale with the Blue Jays. To say the bullpen is less than optimal going into Cincinnati will be an understatement.
It’ll be interesting to see if any fresh arms are brought up to relieve some of the pressure from the rest of the arms. Boone said he could go with an opener on Saturday, similar to what they did on Monday, but with Clarke Schmidt starting Friday and a starter returning from injury this weekend -- more on that later -- Boone may have to call on his bullpen a lot.
