New York Yankees vs. Baltimore Orioles: Jordan Montgomery vs. Jorge López

The month of April has been a truly weird one for the 2021 Yankees, who have looked like utter crap at times and easy AL East favorites at others. Fortunately, this series has been more the latter than the former, though Monday’s dud still lurks in the back of my mind. Blame Matt Harvey.

The past two days have been encouraging though, especially from the offense. They’ll try to good feelings going against right-hander Jorge López, who they faced back on April 5th. The Yankees did their job then, knocking him out after 4.2 innings and scoring four runs on three walks and three hits — including Aaron Judge’s first homer of 2021.

Speaking of Judge, he’s out of the lineup again today as he’s dealing with lower body soreness. This is the same strategy of back-to-back days off that Aaron Boone used a couple weeks ago when Judge was battling side soreness, and the slugger successfully returned. Also, Gary Sánchez is back in the lineup today, as it’s a day game after a night game, so Boone was always going to sit Kyle Higashioka. DJ LeMahieu takes first base over Mike Ford, as Rougned Odor slides in at second.

Countering López will be the same man who faced him on April 5th: Jordan Montgomery. The southpaw dominated Baltimore with six shutout frames, fanning seven batters in the process. The Yankees would gladly take another 7-0 win, but I’m not picky about the margins. Just win this game to take the series and get one step closer to finally returning to .500.

Let’s go Yankees.

How to watch

Location: Oriole Park at Camden Yards — Baltimore, MD

First pitch: 1:05 p.m. ET

TV broadcast: YES, MASN, MLB Network (out-of-market)

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280

Online stream: MLB.tv

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