Yankees announce ALCS Game 5 lineup

The Yankees won Game 4 of the ALCS after a rollercoaster ride, building a lead on Giancarlo Stanton’s three-run home run before watching it fail thanks to an overwhelmed bullpen that finally showed the consequences of all the pressure put on them. completely undoing the offense of going back and taking the lead back from the best closer in baseball. Now they have a chance to end this streak tonight in Cleveland, and manager Aaron Boone is making some minor changes to his lineup tonight in support of Carlos Rodón:

2B Gleyber Torres
RF Juan Soto
CF Aaron Richter
DH Giancarlo Stanton
3B Jazz Chisholm Jr.
1B Anthony Rizzo
SS Anthony Volpe
C Austin Wells
LF Alex Verdugo

The notable change here is Stanton moving back into the cleanup position behind Aaron Judge, giving the protection of the game’s best postseason hitter back-to-back. Boone was quite adamant about keeping the left-right rhythm consistent in his lineup in order to deal with substitutes later in the game, but had the duo together for his lineup in Game 3, where the two faced Emmanuel twice in a row Clase stepped up to score a draw in the game. Given the chance to advance, Boone will once again give his big boppers the best chance to hit one out of the park.

Meanwhile, Jazz Chisholm Jr. slides down one spot into the fifth hole. Chisholm’s bat has been one of the few holes in the offense this series, so it’s a bit of a surprise that he’s still as high up as he is. However, given that he was pairing the two right-handers with Judge and Stanton, it was inevitable that a pair of left-handed hitters would also be grouped together, and it appears that Boone preferred Anthony Volpe to continue to face traffic towards the end of the lineup Bases instead of sending him into the five holes.

Austin Wells will start in the eighth for the second straight game, and being demoted to cleanup hitter yesterday seemed to do him good. He took a 4-1 lead with a solo home run in the second inning and built a 3-0 lead at that point, which helped force Gavin Williams out of the game after just 2.1 innings.

Finally, we must once again highlight the work of the passed pawn that Gleyber Torres does in the leadership position for this team. Torres was on base to start all four ALCS games and yesterday went 2-for-5 with a run and an RBI after hitting a clutch backup run in the ninth inning against Clase. Will he make it to the start of Game 5 with a perfect 5-on-5 win? To find out, you’ll have to tune in.