Opening Day a two-arm race
TAMPA — Early Saturday afternoon, the Yankees’ top two starters stood on bullpen mounds feet apart from each other and popped catchers’ gloves with baseballs that were easier to hear than see through the Steinbrenner Field chain-link fence dressed in midnight mesh.
Though there are three other pitchers in the Yankees’ rotation, those squinting through the screen were focused on Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka.
One will be the Opening Day starter against the Blue Jays on March 29 in Toronto with the other pitching the second game of the season a day later.
So, upon which righthander will Aaron Boone bestow the prestigious honor? In time the firstyear manager will have to choose one, but he said he isn’t in a rush.
“I think the one good thing with our guys, with other teams it’s more obvious, OK this guy pitches Opening Day,’’ Boone said. “We have guys like Tanaka and CC [Sabathia] who have been aces of a staff. We have [Severino] that became what he became a year ago. Sonny Gray has been a guy. To me the order in which they pitch isn’t necessarily that big of a deal. A lot of that will go into is how we view these guys physically and how we want to build in rest and off days as we look at the first month or two of the season. We will look ahead a little bit [to] how they match up against some teams that a certain slot might go against. They will all be things that kind of factor in, but we have already started to hone in on those things a little bit.”
Boone included Sabathia and Gray in the mix, but realistically it’s a two-arm race.
Tanaka drew the Opening Day assignment each of the past three years, and went 0-2 with a hefty 9.49 ERA in those starts. Severino has never worked the first game of the season in his brief big league career, but he was the choice to start against the Twins in last year’s AL wild-card game, in which he got spanked.
Based on statistics, Gray has the best track record on Opening Day among Yankees hurlers. He was 1-0 and threw 14 scoreless innings in two starts for the Athletics. Sabathia has made 11 career Opening Day outings, six with the Yankees. He is 0-3 with an obese 7.72 ERA pitching openers in pinstripes.
Severino agreed it would be an honor to work the first game of a season many predict will end with the Yankees atop the AL East, but he isn’t dwelling on it.
“I just want to be on the team,’’ said Severino, who finished third in the 2017 AL Cy Young vote after going 14-6 with a 2.98 ERA following a disastrous 2016 season, during which he was sent to the minors. “I want to help the team get to the playoffs and maybe win a World Series.’’
Tanaka respects the honor of being the Opening Day starter for the Yankees and hasn’t been able to avoid the subject thanks to his homeland journalists.
“The Japanese media has been asking questions, so I am aware of that,’’ Tanaka said via a translator. “I think it’s a special day and it only happens once a year. If given the opportunity to pitch on that day it would be great. The more important part is to be ready to go on the very first day I am pitching for the New York Yankees.’’
Which will be Opening Day … or the day after that.