New York Yankees vs. Washington Nationals: Jonathan Loaisiga vs. Patrick Corbin

I don’t know about you, but I found the Yankees game on Thursday to be a lot more fun than the game last night, and I spent half of Opening Night in a power outage, sitting in a dark room with no air conditioning. But it’s a new day, and an opportunity to bounce back presents itself.

Jonathan Loaisiga will start for the Yankees in what was announced as a bullpen game and will likely still be, despite the de facto bullpen game last night. The Yankees hope that Loaisiga, who looked good in spring training, can finally put it all together and become an important swingman on the Yankees staff. In 31.1 innings last year, he posted a 4.55 ERA (4.95 FIP), as well as a suboptimal 2.31 K/BB.

Patrick Corbin gets the ball for the Nationals this afternoon. The Clay, New York, native put to rest the doubts of those who believed he was not worth the six-year, $140M contract he signed before last season, going 14-7 with a 3.25 ERA (3.49 FIP) in 202 innings, accumulating 5.6 bWAR in the process. Although only the third-best pitcher in the Nationals deep rotation, he remains a tough challenge as one of the best left-handed starters in the league.

DJ LeMahieu is back in the lineup and looks to play all nine innings today. Miguel Andujar, Mike Tauchman, and Kyle Highashioka fill in for Brett Gardner, Aaron Hicks, and Gary Sanchez, respectively. Oh, and Giancarlo Stanton remains in the lineup; based on his performances the last two games, in which he followed up a 459-foot home run with one that went 483 feet, we should expect a 507-footer today, right?

And here’s the Nationals lineup that they will be going up against:

First pitch is scheduled for 1:05 EST. Within the New York market, you can catch the game on YES; outside, TBS will carry it as well. For those listening along on the radio, you can find the game on either WFAN 660/101.9 FM or WADO 1280.

Let’s Go Yankees!