The New York Yankees’ performance in the season to the end of May is better than any of us had a right to expect.
Part of that is due to the batting performances of the likes of Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, but that is not the whole picture. The pitching arms have been an essential part of the growth.
Continue readingThe New York Yankees had a sensational month in May. They went 21-7 and dominated the league and their division.
Aaron Judge, who had struggled in April, bounced back with strength. Juan Soto continued at the high level he set in April. Their starting pitchers exceeded expectations. The bullpen had as much depth as anticipated.
Continue readingAnd so we turn our attention to the Yankees pitchers. The starting rotation has had some necessary changes. The bullpen has changed beyond recognition.
Obviously, the major need is to cover for the absence because of injury of Gerrit Cole. He’ll be out until June.
Continue readingThe Yankees settled into their groove right from the beginning of the season this time out. By the end of March, they were 4-0 and in first place in the American League East.
By the end of April, they had slipped back to 2nd in the division, but only by one game behind the Baltimore Orioles.
Continue readingThe Yankees’ injury situation in May began to settle down. Only four players were added to the injured – Aaron Judge, Jose Trevino, Ian Hamilton and Oswald Peraza. And whilst it is never going to be easy to lose Judge, in particular, it must be noted that three of these players bounced back at the end of the 10 days that their period on the injured list required. Hamilton will be out for longer.
At the same time, many players were heading for rehab assignments and moving closer to a return. These included Luis Severino, Josh Donaldson, Tommy Kahnle, and Ben Rortvedt.
Perhaps even more significantly the Yankees finally gave up on the wretched tenure of Aaron Hicks, accepting that clearing a space on the roster was more important than worrying how much of his contract they were still going to be liable for. They designated him for assignment on the 20th of the month – and when he cleared waivers without any notable interest, they released him a week later. Hicks signed for Baltimore by the end of the month.
In a parallel move, the Yankees traded with the Boston Red Sox, giving up minor leaguer Diego Hernandez and acquiring Greg Allen. Allen had previously played for the Bronx Bombers in 2020.
Aaron Judge…! Aaron Judge…!! The 17 games the Yankees won during September were primarily down to Mr Judge, their superstar outfielder, whose sixty plus home runs guaranteed them their place in the post-season.
But, it obviously wasn’t down to Aaron alone. We’ve already seen how much players like Gleyber Torres contributed to getting things rolling in September. And many of the pitchers, both starters and relievers, added great performances into this strong month.
Well, after August it had to get better right? Well, thankfully, it did! Winning 17-8 on the month, it was the best month that the Yankees had since June. July had been ordinary. August was appalling, but September was just what the Yankees needed to head into the post-season.
Some new faces settled into the squad. Some players came back from injury.
The Yankees’ pitchers are on-the-whole doing amazingly this season. If at this time last year, we would have predicted that Clay Holmes would have signed with the Yankees from Pittsburgh and would have the record that shows in our table below, across a whole calendar month, then you would have been convinced that I was fooling. And I would have never have been that foolish.
Furthermore, after two months we are talking about Nestor Cortes as a possible Cy Young candidate, and yet there are 6 members of the bullpen (Nestor has the best May ERA of the starters) who have ERAs superior to his and some of those are people who you’d expect to be in the relief corps all season long. Strange days indeed.
The Yankees were able to call on their main five starting pitchers throughout April, without any of them suffering injury. Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Jordan Montgomery, Jameson Taillon and Nestor Cortes were available from Opening day, and remained that way.
Domingo German remained on the injured list but the Yankees had anticipated that. There were no new faces amongst the starting pitchers and only a smattering among the relievers. Based on last season, the fanbase wouldn’t be too sure what to expect from this arrangement but as we have already suggested in our article about the batters, things worked out just fine as, after a few bumps, the team cruised to the head of the division.
The New York Yankees starting rotation rather fell apart in September.
Towards the end of August, they had given up on using Andrew Heaney as a starter – in September he didn’t do any better as a reliever.
Luis Gil, who had an astonishing start to his career in the majors in August, didn’t even come close to repeating that form in the following month.
Jameson Taillon spent time on the injury list. Clarke Schmidt became available but struggled. Luis Severino was available for the first time in the longest but the Yankees weren’t willing to risk him as a starter given all of his injury difficulties. Domingo German was added to the roster but wasn’t chosen to play until October. Thankfully, the bullpen regulars performed extremely well…
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