Yankees hope to snap out of slump against rebranded Cleveland Guardians
NEW YORK – The best way to handle the situation is just to repeat the words, over and over: Yankees vs. Guardians.
The Cleveland baseball team is on its first visit to Yankee Stadium since its offseason rebranding, and getting used to the new name in New York has been hit-or-miss.
“I feel like I’ve been pretty good at saying the ‘Guardians’,” said Yanks manager Aaron Boone, who played two seasons in Cleveland. “We did have someone in our in a coaches’ meeting earlier today open it up [by saying] ‘the Indians’. But I’m getting there with it.”
The same could be said of New York’s offense.
Boone’s bunch entered its three-game series against the Guardians having scored 39 runs in 13 games (3.0 average), fourth-fewest in the American League. It managed to stay on the right side of .500 in that span by allowing the fewest runs in the AL (37), but that will be another challenge against a Cleveland club that entered the weekend leading the majors in runs scored (68).
“You add in [that] it’s April… short spring training, colder months, it’s usually a little more difficult to hit,” Boone said. “But, that said, we’ve got to find a way.
“We have the guys capable of doing that, I believe, and we’ve got to just continue to grind away at this.”
If ever there was a situation for the Yankee bats to exploit, the start of the Cleveland series is it. The Guardians had four players on the COVID list, including starter Cal Quantrill.
Lefty Kirk McCarty is slated to make his big-league debut Saturday against Nestor Cortes. Friday night’s pitcher, Eli Morgan, began the season in the bullpen before making his second start against the Yankees in a 21-game career.
His first time on the mound in the Bronx featured six innings of six-hit, one-run ball in an 11-1 Cleveland win last September.
“If you ask any hitter, there’s probably the preference they had a ton of it bats and familiarity with him,” Boone said. “We’re familiar enough with [Morgan] and know he has got an outstanding changeup and some real pitch ability.”
Old names are history
Friday marked the 119th anniversary of the Yankees’ first MLB game, which they played as the Highlanders. In fact, neither Cleveland nor New York used their current monikers when their first meeting took place on May 15, 1903 (per baseball-reference.com).
That season, Cleveland’s team was known as the “Naps”, after hall-of-fame second baseman Nap Lajoie. It was the third of five nicknames the franchise has had in the majors: Blues (1901), Bronchos (sic, 1902), Naps (1903-14), Indians (1915-2021) and Guardians.
The Highlanders became the Yankees in 1913.
Cleveland is the third MLB team to change its mascot without changing cities since the expansion era began in 1961. The Houston Colt .45s also dropped a controversial name in 1965, becoming the Astros. The Tampa Bay Rays spent their first 10 seasons as the Devil Rays, prior to losing the “Devil” in 2008.
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This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: Yankees hope to end slump against rebranded Cleveland Guardians
