New York Yankees vs. Cleveland Guardians: Jameson Taillon vs. Eli Morgan

The New York Yankees return home from a 3-3 road trip that ended with a missed opportunity for a sweep in Detroit. Now, they’ll face another AL Central opponent, as the Cleveland Guardians come to town for the first time under their new name.

The opening matchup of this series will see Jameson Taillon take the ball for the Yankees against the Eli Morgan. The right-handed Morgan will be making his first start of 2022, though he has worked three games out of the bullpen. In 18 starts last year, he had a 5.34 ERA and 5.14 FIP, so as Matt indicated in his series preview, the Yankees should theoretically be able to take care of business against him, but who knows with this offense?

Looking ahead to this series at the beginning of the season, if you were told that it would be a duel of a hot lineup against a hot pitching staff, you would not have guessed that the hot bats would be coming from Cleveland against a Yankees team that’s been relying primarily on its staff.

The Guardians just swept the division favorites Chicago White Sox at home, and it wasn’t a particularly competitive series. Terry Francona’s men outscored the White Sox 19-5, including an 11-1 route in the first game of the doubleheader on Wednesday.

The Yankees bats will look to get hot against the bottom part of the Guardians rotation as they’ll fortunately avoid Shane Bieber, Zack Plesac, and Triston McKenzie in the series. It’s as good a time as any for Aaron Judge and company to get hot. Judge is in center, as Aaron Hicks out of the lineup today (Gleyber Torres is starting at second with DJ LeMahieu DHing and Giancarlo Stanton in right field), and Jose Trevino is set to get the start behind the plate with Kyle Higashioka on the bench and Aaron Boone supporting more of a “50/50 split.”

How to watch:

Location: Yankee Stadium — Bronx, NY

First pitch: 7:05 pm ET

TV Broadcast: Amazon Prime Video, Bally Sports Great Lakes

Radio Broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280

Online Stream: MLB.tv

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