Yankees announce ALDS Game 5 lineup (take two)

Let’s try that again, shall we?

The New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians waited over two and a half hours to see if they could get Game 5 of their American League Division Series matchup in last night at Yankee Stadium. But Mother Nature had other plans, as a new weather pattern ruined those aspirations. To be clear, Major League Baseball really did a poor job of communicating the thought process, and fans at the Stadium got screwed over. So it was a lose/lose night, honestly.

Anyway: onward and upward. The new Game 5 is scheduled for 4:07pm ET, and Nestor Cortes will get the ball on short rest for the Yankees with essentially the entire pitching staff ready to chip in behind him. We’ll soon know who is flying to Houston for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series tomorrow night, and who is flying home for the offseason.

Guardians manager Terry Francona has elected not to start ace Shane Bieber on three days’ rest and will instead stick with the original plan of Aaron Civale to begin Game 5. As with New York, the entire Cleveland bullpen will be ready to step in as needed, and their top arms are even more rested than the Yankees’. I’d expect a quick hook.

The Yankees will run out the same lineup that they were going to use last night:

The main concern I have is that only Anthony Rizzo and the surprising Harrison Bader have had any semblance of consistency in this series. That’s not to say that there should be replacements beyond the nine players who the Yankees are rolling out today (though again, I’d have preferred Oswald Peraza to be on the roster in the first place — particularly with Isiah Kiner-Falefa still benched), but I just hope that enough of these guys produce to cover for the uncertain combination of Cortes on short rest and the shaky bullpen. We’ll find out soon enough. Civale does have home run problems, so maybe New York will run into some pop early.

As always: Let’s go Yankees.