Ready for road
Players confident that away games won’t be an issue with team
CLEVELAND — Luke Voit called it “BS” on Tuesday and DJ LeMahieu basically said it was not an issue at all. All that talk about the Yankees’ home-and-road splits was nonsense to them.
“It’s a 60-game season, I feel like 30 games probably isn’t quite enough to be making too strong of opinions on,” LeMahieu said before Wednesday night’s Game2 of the ALWild Card Series against Cleveland at Progressive Field. “When our offense is clicking, it doesn’t matter where we’re at.”
The Yankees went 11-18 on the road during this coronavirus pandemic-shortened season with pretty dramatic offensive splits. That cost them the right to host this opening-round best-of-three games series in the Bronx. Tuesday night, the Yankees’ offense was clicking and Progressive Field might as well have been in the Bronx.
They absolutely clobbered Cleveland ace Shane Bieber, who not only won the Triple Crown this season, but is also the hands down favorite to win the AL Cy Young.
It didn’t surprise LeMahieu at all.
“It’s no secret that we were inconsistent this year, kind of all around. But at the same time, we did a good job of turning the page and the playoffs are different,” LeMahieu said. “Whether you have had an inconsistent year, you can turn it on and whether you have a great year, you can lose it real quickly.
“I just think we’re in a really good spot,” LeMahieu continued. “I thought we had a really, really good game plan for Bieber. His stuff was very good. I just feel like we had a really good plan. Really good approach, and we executed really well.”
LeMahieu, who finished the regular season as the 2020 AL batting champion, becoming the first man in the modern era to win the title in both leagues, said this is what is expected this time of year.
“We knew deep down that we haven’t been ourselves consistently,” LeMahieu said.
“Nowwe’ve known that we felt that weknewwewere better than what we’re doing. And like I said, I feel like we turned the page on the regular season. Really came out last night and played with focus.”
Gardy postseason party: Brett Gardner got his second straight start in the playoffs Wednesday night. The 37-yearold veteran outfielder got the start over Clint Frazier.