Yankees Highlights: The pitching finally arrives

The Yankees stared down the end of their season tonight, and held off elimination for at least one more day. After getting poor pitching from their higher-rated starters in Masahiro Tanaka and J.A. Happ and inconsistent results from the bullpen, it all came together in Game Four. New York won 5-1, and they will force a winner-take-all Game Five.

Winners of the Game

Raise your hand if you had Jordan Montgomery as the second-most important starter for the Yankees entering the ALDS. Monty only went four innings in this outing, but they were some of the most crucial outs that the team could get. He threw 62 pitches to get through the appearance, laboring through the final two frames, but he managed to hold the Rays offense to just one run allowed despite loading up the bases with just one out in the third.

Montgomery handed the ball over to the three best relievers the Yankees have, with Chad Green, Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman combining to throw five shutout innings. Green likely won’t be available for Game Five after working in two straight nights and warming up several times before getting into this game, but he had his best stuff of the season when he entered. Britton and Chapman were also very efficient, and should both be good to go behind Cole tomorrow.

Honorable Mentions: The offense has been one consistently great feature of this postseason run, but some different faces powered the win tonight. Gleyber Torres delivered the big blow that gave the Yankees some separation, a massive two-run blast that landed on the iconic Western Metal Supply Company building.

Luke Voit had been quiet in the postseason after leading MLB in regular season home runs, but he woke up tonight. Check out this hammer of a swing:

Welcome back, Luke.

Loser of the Game

There are no losers on a night like this, after how in command of this game the Yankees were. Job well done, now go out and get it again tomorrow.

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