Baby Bombers Green, Judge Instrumental in Jays Series Opener

 As the New York Yankees hosted the Toronto Blue Jays in game one, anyone watching the game was treated to an absolute pitchers duel. Filling in for the injured Nathan Eovaldi tonight was young righty Chad Green, who had far and away his best start of his career as he tossed six sensational innings against one of the toughest lineups in all of baseball.  Taking the mound for Toronto was former NL Cy Young Award winner R.A. Dickey, who himself pitched well tonight, allowing several more baserunners then his opposition, but got out of several sticky situations with his token nasty knuckleball.  New York ended up leaving a small village on the base paths(15 RLOB) in their game one win, a game that saw the Yankees pull back to within 5.5 games of first place in the AL East

While there was no scoring action, or really any offensive action to speak of as both Green and Dickey were dealing through the first three frames, there was a rare delay between the second and third innings. During Brian McCann's first at bat, McCann foul-tipped a ball off Homeplate Umpire Hunter  Wendelstedt's  Face mask. Yankees trainer Steve Donahue eventually came out of the dugout and escorted Wendelstedt to the clubhouse for concussion evaluation, leading to about a 10 minute delay as 2B Umpire Scott Berry went and put on the protective gear to take over behind the dish.

Although the Yanks had two runners on base in two out of the first three innings, it took a similar situation in the fourth for them to put the first and only run of the game on the board. Brian McCann and Gary Sanchez both worked one-out walks, and then rookie sensation Aaron Judge smacked his first career double to right, scoring McCann to put the Yankees on top by a 1-0 score.

Chad Green was absolutely fantastic tonight, not walking a single better and striking out a career-high 11 batters out of the 18 outs he recorded in his six brilliant shut out innings of two-hit work. Green was actually perfect through the first 4.1 innings, but Troy Tulowitzki broke up his perfecto with a humpback line drive to left for a one-out single in the top of the fifth. With Eovaldi's recent injury, the Yankees were desperately looking for someone to step up, and Mr. Green answered the call with authority tonight.

Tyler Clippard worked a perfect seventh, Adam Warren also got Toronto to go down in order, marking the seventh time in eight innings that the Blue Jays went down 1-2-3. Delin Betances made things interesting, however, as he walked Josh Thole to start the ninth. Junior Lake pinch ran for Thole, advancing to third on a Josh Donaldson single up the middle. But then the big man got Edwin Encarnacion to ground into a game-ending double-play, making it an even 20 wins by one run this season.

It's an M&M battle tomorrow as Michael Pineda and Marco Estrada face off in game two, with first pitch scheduled for 7:05 PM/EST.