Yankees jump out to early lead, avoid sweep with 5-1 win over Guardians

The Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians, 5-1, in the series finale of a three-game set on Wednesday afternoon.

Here are the takeaways...

- The Yanks jumped on Guardians starter L.L. Ortiz, scoring twice in each of the first two innings. The first four batters of the game were able to reach base, with the big knocks being Aaron Judge's RBI triple and Paul Goldschmidt's opposite-field RBI double -- both were inches away from leaving the park.

- In the second inning, Jasson Dominguez led off with a walk, and after stealing second he scored on a Ben Rice single. Rice came around to score a run of his own a few batters later on Goldschmidt's second run-scoring knock in as many innings.

- Rice was on base three times out of the leadoff spot, bringing his OPS to 1.005. Judge was also on base three times -- he's now hitting a league-high .419 with a 1.247 OPS. Goldschmidt continues swinging a hot bat, posting a .383 average through 94 at-bats.

- Carlos Rodon put together his second consecutive strong outing after being staked to the early advantage. He was hurt by a Cody Bellinger error in the first, which allowed an unearned run to score, but was able to dance around further damage from there.

The southpaw's best inning came in the fourth, when he struck out the side on just 10 pitches. He worked around a one out walk in the fifth before retiring the next six batters he faced to close out one of his strongest performances of the year.

Rodon allowed just the unearned run on four hits and two walks while striking out eight across seven innings.

- Fernando Cruz continued his strong start to the year, striking out a pair in the eighth. Luke Weaver then came on and worked around a one-out single to put the finishing touches on the Yankees' 15th victory of the season.

- The heart of New York's order continues to struggle, with Jazz Chisholm Jr., Anthony Volpe, and Austin Wells going acombined 2-for-15 on the afternoon with eight strikeouts. Chisholm singled and the other knock was a Wells RBI double, but they have a combined .683 OPS on the year.

Game MVP: Carlos Rodon

Rodon put together one of his strongest outings of the season to help New York avoid the three-game sweep.

Highlights

Aaron Judge gets the Yankees started with an RBI triple! pic.twitter.com/L3YTEVZeKG— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 23, 2025

The Yankees are off to a hot start in Cleveland pic.twitter.com/WbUe7L5n5c— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) April 23, 2025

Whats next

The Yanks return home to start a three-game set with the Blue Jays on Friday at 7:05 p.m.