Cole Will Dominate Cleveland

Guardians vs. Yankees, 7:05 ET

Last year, the Guardians fell to the Yankees in five games in the playoffs. They’ve already played each other once this season and now are on their second series together. Neither team, after just one month, looks like they will be a good candidate to even really make the playoffs right now. With the Guardians or Yankees take this game?

The Guardians seemingly have nothing but pitching aces in their farm system. Each year it seems like someone new gets called up and they just dominate. I don’t know if it is the drafting, the coaching, both, or something else. Whatever the case may be, the Guardians aren’t quite pitching as well as they had in the past few years. Now, they send one of their newer call-ups to the hill in Tanner Bibee. This is only the second start of Bibee’s career, but if he is as good as he was in the first one, the Yankees are in for a long day. Bibee went 5.2 innings, allowed six hits and no walks while striking out eight hitters. He did allow one earned run in that outing. The only issue I have is he started at home and faced the Rockies. That’s a much more comfortable outing than having to face the Yankees at Yankee Stadium.

Cleveland takes on New York on Tuesday (Photo by George Kubas/Diamond Images via Getty Images)

At some point, the Yankees hitters will need to start getting timely hits. One of their biggest issues is that they don’t seem to struggle to hit the ball just when they need people to get across the plate. Their pitching has been okay and should get better as the rotation arms get healthier. One guy that looks to be in mid-season form is Gerrit Cole, today’s starter. Cole has been spectacular at home this season with 27 innings and just one earned run allowed. He has only allowed 12 hits in this stretch and controlled his walks with just two allowed. He did face the Guardians once this season and allowed two earned runs over seven innings. The Yankees won that game 11-2.

The Yankees have actually won all of Cole’s starts. And, of the six starts, they have won five of them by two or more runs. I expect that trend to continue today and think the Yankees are going to cover this -1.5 spread at +125. I’ll take the Yankees on the run line.

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