Yankees Split Opening Day Games in Johnson City

What's better than one game on opening day? Two! Mother nature wasn't quite ready for the Pulaski Yankees to open their season yesterday when Johnson City and TVA Credit Union Ballpark were on the other end of heavy rain that left the outfield with a significant amount of standing water. Today was much better though and the Yankees and Cardinals did get their 2019 seasons underway with a double-header.

Yoendrays Gomez (1-0) got the start for the Yankees in game one and did not disappoint as he went 5.0 innings and gave up just one run on five hits and struck out five Cardinal batters.
The first run of the season for the Yanks came in the top of the second inning via the long ball. Knoxville, Tenn. Native Ryder Green took a pitch deep to left center field in his very first plate appearance of the season to put Pulaski up 1-0. Johnson City answered with their only run of game 1 with a sacrifice fly in the bottom of the third inning.
In the top of the fifth inning Carlos Tatis reached base on a fielding error by Cardinals shortstop Mateo Gil and then Luis Santos added to the Yankees lead when he hit his first homerun of the season to left center. The Yankees added two more runs with RBIs from Antonio Cabello and Anthony Garcia.
Gomez was replaced in the sixth inning by Derek Craft who finished game one without giving up a hit to Johnson City and gave the Yankees a win in their first game of the year.
 
The Yankees called on RHP Reid Anderson (0-1) to start game two. Anderson had trouble controlling his pitches early and issued three walks and gave up two hits in 1.1 innings pitched before being replaced by Sean Boyle. Johnson City jumped out to an early lead with one run in the bottom of the first inning and never surrendered it. The Cardinals would add one run in each of the next two innings to take a 3-0 lead into the fourth inning.
Ryder Green lead off the top of the fourth inning with a double to left field and then Gustavo Campero drew a walk to give the Yankees two runners on with no outs. Their scoring chances improved even more when a botched pickoff attempt to second base allowed Green and Campero to move up a base and gave the Yankees runners on second and third base with nobody out.
Anthony Garcia hit a sacrifice fly that scored Green but Campero was thrown out trying to move up to third base which killed a lot of momentum for the Yankees as the could not push across any more runs and fell in game 2 by a score of 3-1.
The Yankees and Cardinals will face off in game three of their opening series tomorrow with first pitched scheduled for its regular time of 6:30 from TVA Credit Union Ballpark.