Yankees News: Nathan Eovaldi Bringing Home The Bacon

New acquisition Nathan Eovaldi is proving that he can get it done for the New York Yankees. Since last month’s opening day, Masahiro Tanaka made his first trip to the DL and CC Sabathia has yet to regain his form. In the midst of these “starting pitching tragedies,” Eovaldi has proven the Yankees right when they decided to trade for him last winter.

So far, he’s started 5 games, pitching 28.1 innings while allowing 12 runs for an ERA of 3.81. While it’s safe to say that these numbers are not impressive by any stretch of the imagination, they are steps in the right direction for a Yankees rotation known for injuries and under-achieving in past seasons.

At first sight, the lanky right-handed pitcher doesn’t seem to be Yankees material, specially with his 17-35 win-loss record. That being said, there are several reasons he’s important to the Yankees. First, at $3.3 million, he’s the cheapest starter on the Yankees rotation. Second, he’s 25 years old and under club control until 2018. Third, his stuff is downright nasty. Aside from all this, he has proven to be a reliable innings-eater. Just last year he pitched 199.2 innings.

His importance was cemented when he was finally able to beat the Yankees’ eternal rival, the Boston Red Sox 4-2 on Saturday. During his victory, he threw 111 pitches during 6 2/3 innings. After getting two quick outs, he was removed after walking Blake Swihart, who later scored on a Mookie Betts double off the Green Monster.

Eovaldi credits pitching inside as being the key to yesterday’s victory. “The last few games I wasn’t able to locate inside as well as I did today,’’ Eovaldi said. “I’ve been working on driving the ball inside.’’

According to his catcher, Brian McCann, Eovaldi was able to navigate Boston’s dangerous lineup with minimal damage by pitching inside. “He pitched to both sides of the plate effectively and had them off-balance. When you pitch in at 96, 97 [mph], that’s hard to hit.”

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