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ATLANTA — On a day the Yankees had little available in the way of relief, Marcus Stroman provided it in his best start of the season.
After the first two Yankees starters this series put the team in early holes and did not last long, Stroman was sharper than he’s been all season to help send the Yankees into a divisional showdown full-steam ahead.
Stroman tossed six innings of one-run ball to keep the Braves at bay and lift the Yankees to a 4-2 win that claimed the series on Sunday afternoon at Truist Park.
Aaron Judge gave Stroman a lead to work with before he even stepped on the mound by crushing his 351st career home run as a Yankee, pulling him into a tie with Alex Rodriguez for sixth-place all-time.
The Yankees (55-44) will now try to take this momentum into a big series against the Blue Jays in Toronto that starts Monday.
They suffered a four-game sweep at Rogers Centre just two and a half weeks ago, which dropped them out of first place in the AL East, and now the Yankees head back there trailing the Blue Jays by three games.
In the first two games of this series coming out of the All-Star break, the Yankees bullpen had to cover 13 ¹/₃ innings.
Eight of those came in Friday’s bullpen game, when Ian Hamilton put them in a 3-0 hole in the first inning, before Will Warren could not make it out of the fourth inning on Saturday.
But Stroman delivered his longest start since last August, scattering five hits and no walks (for the first time this season) while striking out four.
The only damage was Matt Olson’s 442-foot solo blast in the sixth inning that landed on the roof of the Chop House in right field.
In four starts since returning from the injured list for knee inflammation, Stroman has pitched to a 3.00 ERA across 21 innings, providing the Yankees some much-needed stability.
Hamilton relieved Stroman and pitched a quick seventh inning before Tim Hill tossed a scoreless eighth.
Devin Williams then gave up a leadoff home run to Ronald Acuña Jr. in the bottom of the ninth but retired the next three batters for his 14th save.
Giancarlo Stanton enjoyed another strong day at the plate, going 3-for-5 with three singles that came off the bat at 115.4 mph, 112.8 mph and 94 mph.
The softest of those came with two outs in the first inning, after Judge had already made it a 1-0 game, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Paul Goldschmidt followed with singles to double the lead at 2-0.
In the sixth inning, the Yankees loaded the bases with one out and missed a chance to blow the game open, but settled for one run when Jorbit Vivas was hit by a pitch.
Then, after Olson homered in the bottom of the sixth, the Yankees immediately got the run back in the top of the seventh on Chisholm’s RBI double that scored Judge.
