Same as ever, Yanks need more pitching
It’s probably gonna take more than Cole to win title
The Yankees signed Gerrit Cole for nine years and $324 million and as soon as they did, they were supposed to be halfway to the Canyon of Heroes. They finally had their ace, the first true ace they’ve had since CC Sabathia in 2009, the last time they won the World Series, 11 years ago, or 11,000 in Yankee years. Of course Cole has been great so far, as dominant as advertised, the 161st St. version of Jacob deGrom. And the Yankees have had as strong a start as anybody else in a short season.
But before we are halfway through the short season, with the new trade deadline coming up at the end of August this time instead of July, we are already reading and hearing about the needs of the most serious contenders to make it to the 2020 Series. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but just about everybody seems to be in agreement that the Yankees are going to be looking for another starting pitcher.
Again.
As fast as he finished last season, James Paxton is off to another slow start in New York, and there are legitimate concerns about his drop in velocity. J.A. Happ, who was 20-4 in another city the way a lot of lot of Yankee starters in this century have been better in cities other than this one, gave up four runs and four hits in four innings to the Orioles in his second-to-last start and then three hits and four runs in three innings the other night against the Phillies. Masahiro Tanaka has had two starts since a Giancarlo Stanton line drive hit him in the head. Jordan Montgomery is a No. 5 starter who pitched like one Thursday night against the Phillies, serving up a 3-run homer in the first inning and putting the Yankees in a hole out of which they could not climb.
All it did was drop the team’s record to 9-3. The Yankees have come out slugging and swinging and through Thursday night, even though he struck out with the tying run at third in the 8th inning, Aaron Judge has been the biggest stick around, with seven homers and 17 RBI. The Yankees are loaded, one hundred percent. It is impossible to see them doing anything other than winning the American League East. They were leading the world in home runs through their first 12 games — one-fifth of the season — and they have Cole and they essentially have two closers when Aroldis Chapman is ready to join Zack Britton in the bullpen.
Maybe this is the year when a kid from their own organization like Clarke Schmidt is the difference maker, instead of this year’s veteran from some other city. Maybe Paxton, especially, who is recovering from back surgery, will figure things out the way he did in 2019 after the Yankees got him from Seattle. Maybe he’ll find the form he showed in Game 5 against the Astros last October, when he pitched six innings and gave up one run and helped save the Yankees’ season at the time. Again: It’s early. But if there’s ever been a Yogi season in Major League
Baseball — it really is going to get late early around here — it is this one.
The Yankees haven’t had enough starting pitching for years and years. You can go all the way back to 2004, and remember that when it was all on the line for them against the Red Sox in Game 7, they had to start Kevin Brown, who had become a bust-out case by then, and then follow him with Javy Vazquez (whom they even brought back to the team in 2010). You know how that worked out. When Randy Johnson became a Yankee, he absolutely did win 17 games twice. The second time he did, his earned run average was a smooth 5.00. It is always worth remembering that the last great starting pitcher the Yankees signed and developed was Andy Pettitte.
Have they been unlucky? Sure they have. Betting on starting pitching is as risky as betting on sports. One year the Yankees didn’t get Cliff Lee at the deadline and he went to the Rangers and they went to the World Series. The Astros got Justin Verlander and not the Yankees and the Astros went to the Series. On and on. Michael Pineda looked as if he were going to be a star when they got him out of Seattle. He got hurt. Luis Severino pitched like an ace in 2018, and ended up winning 19 games. Then he got hurt. Now he’s had Tommy John surgery.
The closest the Yankees have come to the World Series since ’09 was three years ago,
when they were ahead of the Astros three games to two in the ALCS. In Game 6, Severino didn’t make it out of the inning. In Game 7, Sabathia didn’t make it out of the fourth. Verlander slamdunked them in Game 6 for the Astros. Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers stuffed them in Game 7.
At the trade deadline of 2019, after the Yankees passed on Patrick Corbin in the previous baseball winter, general manager Brian Cashman was saying “We’re going to look hard at starting pitching.” They always are. Listen: I think the Yankees are as good a bet as anybody else to win it all. Maybe the best bet. They have enough hitting and enough Cole and enough bullpen to do that. They ran away with things in the East last year even without Cole. If Tanaka just pitches the way he always has, and either Paxton or Happ establishes himself as a solid No. 3, they should win the East, breezing. They have enough depth everywhere except the rotation and enough big arms in the bullpen that they could easily go 45-15, something like that, and then have Cole win Game 1 of their first series and go from there.
“Nothing beats several outings from your starters that give you some length that really kind of preserve and set everyone up down there in that pen,” Aaron Boone said the other night in Philadelphia.
Boone’s Yankees have won 100 games the past two seasons. They’ve been knocking on the door for three. The missing piece was supposed to be an ace like Gerrit Cole. We’ll see. Yanks may need more starting pitching. Again. Yeah, Yankee fans can stop me if they’ve heard that one.