FALSE START

German struggles in return to hill as Yank bats fail in opening series loss to Blue Jays

Michael King had a good idea that he didn’t fit in the Yankees rotation when he headed to Tampa this winter. The righthander came into spring training trying to find his niche on the big-league club. He came up with the idea that after the weird 60-game pandemic year, with pitchers uncertain how they will rebound this year, his goal was to give the Yankees 100 solid innings — however and whenever they want to use them.

“I guess I’m six down,” King said with a smile Sunday.

King gave the Yankees six scoreless innings, the only highlight for the Bombers on Sunday. He gave them a chance, but their bats never came alive in the 3-1 loss in front of a “sell-out crowd” of 10,066 at the Stadium.

The Yankees (1-2) dropped their first series — including the opener with ace Gerrit Cole on the mound — of the season to the scrappy, young Blue Jays (2-1) who have made no secret of the fact they want to be the Yankees’ challenger for the division title.

Domingo German, making his first start since Sept. 2019 after serving an 81game suspension for domestic violence, was shaky and, after giving up three runs on two homers, left after just three innings.

The Yankees lineup continued to struggle. Clint Frazier’s double to lead off the fifth turned into their only run on Brett Gardner’s ground out. The Yankees were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and 4-for24 for the three-game series.

In his first appearance in more than a season, German was met mostly by ambivalence when he was introduced. There was a smattering of applause, no audible boos ... until he gave up three runs in the second inning.

But King was a reassuring sign for the Yankees, who have a rotation filled with question marks behind Cole.

“He’s got six in the book. So it’s a good start for him,” Aaron Boone said of the King. “Look, he’s come a long way. I feel like he, along with a few other guys have really shown real significant improvement and today, I think he proved it. He is certainly on our board as somebody that can do a lot of different things for us. We value him being built up like he is right now. We certainly feel like if we need to, he can start for us and obviously to come in and give us that kind of length out of the pen.

“So how it all adds up in the end, I don’t know, but I feel like he’s put himself in a good spot to be a real contributor.”

With so much uncertainty about their pitchers from last season and with pitchers coming off injuries, the Yankees stocked up their bullpen with multi-inning relievers like Jonathan Loaisiga and Luis Cessa. All of baseball has questions about their pitchers. After last year’s weird stop-start-ramp up quickly for a coronavirus pandemic-abbreviated 60-game regular season, King saw a versatile long-reliever, spot starter as his role.

“I think a lot of teams are gonna kind of gain some importance with long relievers. Whether it’s that or six starters or even seven starters, whatever it is, just to kind of keep the bullpen healthy,” King said. “I don’t think you are going to have guys who go 200 innings.”

So, King gives the Yankees some versatile insurance and length.

After walking the first batter he saw on four pitches and giving up a single to follow that, King settled down using his hybrid slider-cutter pitch to retire the last 16 batters in a row.

“He pitched great. To be as pitch efficient as he was, to be able to complete that game was huge for us,” Boone said. “He saved some guys obviously, but just especially after the way it started for him... I thought he used all his pitches really well. He had his cutter going, using a sinker, his changeup, he shaped some good sliders, so he was really in command and gave us a chance.

“I mean, we fell behind and it seems like we’re down big there early, but we’re right in that game,” Boone said. “We just couldn’t muster enough offensively, but he did a heck of a job.”