Yankees 5, Angels 3: Tanaka pitches well and Judge hits another monster home run

The Yankees did not keep up their five-game consecutive streak of eight or more runs a game. Bummer. On the plus side, they still won the ballgame by a score of 5-3 and secured their sixth win in a row. I suppose that’s more important than scoring eight runs. Slightly.

The story of the night was Masahiro Tanaka’s performance on the mound. After having his start on Sunday pushed back, Joe Girardi and Larry Rothschild were hoping that facing the Angels could get his mechanics back in order. That looked like the case tonight. Tanaka went 6.2 innings, giving up four hits and one earned run while walking two and striking out eight. He probably would’ve pitched a full seven innings if not for a Chase Headley error. Regardless, Tanaka needed this outing. The Yankees needed it. We needed it. Here’s hoping he brings something similar to Oakland.

The offense was pretty lackluster tonight. While they did score five runs and win the ballgame, they did blow that five-game streak I mentioned earlier. Perhaps I’m just spoiled. We’ll obviously get to our daily segment “What Judge did” in a moment, but first we need to talk about Sir Didi Gregorius. To say he’s locked in would be an understatement. Sir Didi went 4-for-4, accounting for the first two of the Yankees’ five runs. His last hit was a really low pitch that he just went down and punched through the left side. Didi is currently batting .344 on the year. While Chase Headley accounted for a good portion of the 4-for-12 RISPFail, he did manage to hit a single for the Yankees third run of the evening.

Now back to our regularly scheduled coverage of Aaron Judge. He struck out his first two at-bats, drew a walk in his third at-bat, then slapped another opposite field single because Judge uses the entire ballpark for his offense. With the game tied up 3-3 in the top of the 8th, Judge crushed another home run to give the Yankees the 5-3 lead they would not relinquish. That home run went 438ft. It was an opposite field shot.

As Yankees’ twitter pointed out, check out the reactions from both James Kaprielian and Aaron Hicks. They both knew it was gone. Kaprielian knew off the sound of the bat. We all knew. This is just so much fun to watch for everyone.

Tyler Clippard would come into the game after Tanaka. Clippard continued to be a bit shaky on the mound but he managed to get through it. Dellin Betances would be asked to get a four-out save and get a four-out save he did. He even struck out the side in the 9th. Neat!

The Yankees will try to take the series and go for their seventh straight win tomorrow. CC Sabathia will take the mound against JC Ramirez. The game begins at 10:05pm and it will be broadcast on YES and WFAN. Be sure to follow our continuing coverage of the Yankees’ MLB Draft as well.