Yankees: Proving that pitching is the ultimate “con” game

The Yankees have at least two starting pitchers who are proving that pitching is the ultimate “con” game this season. Let me explain.

The Yankees have two starting pitchers in their current rotation who, in the recent past, have never had a story written about them without the word “inconsistent” close to their names. That’s changed, or at least is changing in a big way that benefits the Yankees from here on in.

It’s a baseball story, and it has to do not so much with a con game as we normally think of one, but with a confidence game. Because when all is said and done, it’s self-confidence or lack thereof, that drives major league ballplayers one way or the other.

And this is particularly the case when it comes to pitching. A major league pitcher stands on a lonely mound, and every set of eyes in the ballpark is on him as he prepares to deliver a pitch to a batter. Nothing in a ballgame happens until the pitch the pitch is delivered. For some, that can be a weighty adventure.

Severino can’t wait to bring it

But if you watched Luis Severino the other night, or in any of his recent starts, you saw a man brewing with confidence. He rarely even stepped off the rubber after delivering a pitch, forcing the hitter to step out to regroup himself.

Watch here, for instance, as Severino had one of those dominating starts against the Royals throwing one filthy pitch after another:

And his total demeanor suggested to the batter, okay here it is hit it if you can. Michael Pineda has had the same body language of late. And it wasn’t too long ago that Pineda could be seen glancing to Joe Girardi in the dugout with an expression that suggested, Joe, please come get me, even though he still had his best stuff.

The story is that Pedro Martinez, the Yankees nemesis, spent a considerable amount of time with Severino, and possibly with Pineda as well during the offseason and Spring Training. It was low-key and not something Martinez mainly wanted to be publicized since his umbilical cord is still attached to the Boston Red Sox.

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But whatever the interchange was, and we’ll probably never know, it worked. Remember, at a mere 5′ 11″ and 170 lbs, Martinez won seven out of every ten decisions over the course of his career. And the reason for doing that has nothing to do with his physical abilities.

No one standing in the batter’s box ever intimidated Pedro Martinez. Instead, he was the king standing on the mound brimming with confidence who sent a message to the hitter, mostly with his body language, that unless I make a mistake, you’re history.

Alas, Harvey and his continuing struggles

To illustrate what confidence means, though, and in contrast though to Severino and Pineda recently, we have the case of Matt Harvey pitching the other night on ESPN’s Game of the Week.

Because if you watched him even for an inning or two, there was almost a glaze in his eyes that suggested bewilderment with his inability to do what he was doing only three years ago.

And it was like he was saying to himself, okay, I’m Matt Harvey and not Tommy Milone (sorry Tom). I’m getting dangerously close to my walk year when I’m supposed to be cashing in big-time as a free agent. Except, I’m approaching 30, and I don’t even have a .500 record over my career.

I can still hit 95 on the gun, but the damn ball isn’t going where I want it to. What the hell?

To be sure, we know all the other stuff attached to the rise and fall of Harvey as a person, together with the injuries, but the fact remains that he is the one being conned now, by himself. And if you had to rate his confidence level as a big league pitcher now on a scale of one to ten, it’d be about a -4.

The Yankees reap the rewards of waiting

The Yankees remain fortunate that both Severino and Pineda are living up to the “upside” that Yankees always knew they had. And you could even say the same about CC Sabathia, who goes out there most nights with an 88 mph fastball but manages to mix in cutters and change-ups to complete his singular task, which is to get batters out any which way you can.

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Do you think for a minute Sabathia can do that without the confidence that he can?

It’s not likely. And therefore, it’s just another baseball story that continues to unravel before our eyes during the magical season the Yankees are having in 2017.