Sevy savors shot to send Yanks to Series

HOUSTON — Luis Severino does not plan to shake his arm again anywhere near the pitching mound on Friday, for risk of Joe Girardi pulling him once again as a precaution with a phantom injury. This is how much this Game 6 start means now to Severino, how much it has to mean to him to have the baseball back in his right hand with a second chance to oppose Astros righty Justin Verlander in this ALCS — only, this time with a trip to the World Series possibly hinging on his performance. “I’m not gonna do nothing. I’m just gonna throw the ball and walk (around) like a robot. Nothing,” Severino joked about his previous start while on a conference call on Thursday, one day after the Yanks had assumed a 3-2 series lead with a 5-0 victory in the Bronx. “My (excitement) level, I think, is 100. “We have a great team, so I’m real excited to get that ball on that day and try to do my best.” Severino, of course, was yanked from his Game 2 start at Minute Maid Park after tossing four innings of one-run ball, nearly matching Verlander until then, even if the former AL MVP went on to throw a rare-for-this-era complete game to boost Houston to a 2-0 series advantage. Girardi believed Severino motioning with his arm in a circular stretching motion at one point in the fourth indicated he might have been dealing with a shoulder injury. The manager explained afterward that while the 23-year-old All-Star “wasn’t very happy, I took him out because I think it is my responsibility to protect this kid.” Severino, whose career-high innings workload stands at 204.2, insisted he was healthy. After team doctors backed up that contention, he even publicly rebuked Girardi’s cautious reaction following Game 2. The manager apparently heard him. “Yeah, I’ll probably react a little different in this situation (if it comes up again),” Girardi admitted on Thursday. Either way, the Yanks impressively haven’t lost since, and Severino clearly is intent now on rejoining the rest of the new homegrown pinstriped core in contributing one more time to the franchise’s potential first World Series appearance since winning championship No. 27 in 2009.

“I know we were thinking that we are here, we all came from the minor-league system and we are almost in the World Series with the Yankees,” Severino said. “I think we got a lot of history and I know those other guys, (Aaron) Judge, Gary (Sanchez), (Greg) Bird, they’re thinking about that. But we haven’t had the time to get together and talk about that.”

What needs to be talked about more in regard to this building wave the Yanks have been riding is how — aside from a couple of isolated blips, most notably Severino’s one-out flub before the bullpen bailed him out in the wild-card win over Minnesota — their starting pitching mostly has been phenomenal through the course of the postseason after various inconsistencies during the 162game slate.

Since Severino’s wild-card meltdown, in fact, the four starters used in the playoff rotation have pitched to a combined 2.29 ERA.

“It’s just not a starting rotation where you necessarily lean on them for seven or eight innings very often. We lean on our bullpen, and they get a lot of the attention,” Girardi said. “But our starters are pretty good.”

Masahiro Tanaka and CC Sabathia have been better than that throughout October, but Severino was the one to emerge as the staff ace in going 14-5 with a 2.98 ERA one year after not winning a single game (0-8) as a starter. He rebounded strongly following the abbreviated wild-card start with seven solid innings in a Game 4 win against Cleveland in the AL division series.

“I don’t want to go over there and let my teammates down like I did that day. But I’ve learned from that start,” Severino said. “I know that I made mistakes. I threw my bullpens and I will try to not do the same mistakes and left that start behind.

“I threw a good game against Cleveland and I was throwing a good game against Houston…So starts like that made me forget that I had that start.”

Now he needs to bounce back from another truncated start, even if the last one was Fnot of his own doing. ollowing what he and Girardi both described as “a great bullpen” session on Wednesday at the Stadium, there should be no trepidation in handing the ball to Severino, even against the mighty Verlander, with an unforeseen trip back to the World Series on the line.

“It’s amazing. Last year I was watching the World Series, and now we have a chance to be in the World Series,” Severino said. “I’m very proud of the work I did in the offseason, the work that I did with my pitching coach here (Larry Rothschild) that helped me be where I am.

“I’m proud of myself and the team that we have.”

It’s amazing. Last year I was watching the World Series, and now we have a chance to be in the World Series.

LUIS SEVERINO