The New York Yankees got the jump in the American League Championship Series on Monday.
The Yankees flew past the Cleveland Guardians to grab a 5-2 win in Game 1 of the ALCS at Yankee Stadium. That gave them a 1-0 lead in the series and has them just three wins away from what would be their first World Series since 2009.
The Yankees, with pop star Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce in attendance in the Bronx, took off in the third inning Monday. First, it was Juan Soto who opened the game with a solo home run to deep center field. That was his first home run this postseason.
Joey Cantillo fell apart a bit on the mound after stepping in for starter Alex Cobb. He allowed two more Yankees runs on wild pitches, which gave New York a 3-0 lead. Cantillo eventually struck out Alex Verdugo to end the inning — his second wild pitch bounced in front of the plate, which allowed Giancarlo Stanton to sneak home — but he walked two more batters in the next inning before he was replaced by Pedro Avila.
The Yankees added another run in the fourth when Aaron Judge hit a sacrifice fly to score Gleyber Torres, which pushed the lead to four.
While the Guardians finally got on the board in the sixth off a Brayan Rocchio solo home run and added another run when Steven Kwan hit an RBI single in the eighth, that was as close as they got. The Yankees scored one more off a Stanton solo shot in the seventh and held on to grab the three-run win.
Yankees starter Carlos Rodon had nine strikeouts and allowed just three hits in his six innings on the mound. Luke Weaver came in for a five-out save at the end of the night, and he closed the game by striking out Austin Hedges. Weaver is now the first pitcher since 2017 to record three saves of more than three outs in a single postseason.
The two teams will run it back on Tuesday before the series shifts to Cleveland for Game 3. The Guardians haven’t been past the ALDS since they fell to the Chicago Cubs in the 2016 World Series.
LIVE COVERAGE IS OVER38 updates
