Yankees: Make no mistake, it’s pitching that got us here

The Yankees might be making their nickname, Bronx Bombers, relevant in New York again, but it’s the starting pitching that’s keeping the team at the top.

The Yankees have revealed a display of power this season that often renders their opponent both helpless and amazed. On one recent occasion, the team blasted four home runs in just one inning against a hapless, Jason Grilli. And they’re not only hitting the ball far, but they’re also hitting it hard as well, with balls soaring off the bat of Aaron Judge at record speeds.

It’s all fun to watch, and it’s the reason why most fans come to the ballpark. But by far, the power alone is not the reason why the Yankees are in first place in June. And teams are beginning to what most of us have known for some time now, which is that the Yankees starting staff is something to be reckoned with.

Numbers don’t lie. And there’s no need to take a trip into space with our friends at Elias who think it’s important to know how many ground balls Pitcher X gets on a 2-2 count to left-handed batters with one out.

If the 2017 playoffs started today, Joe Girardi, thinking with his head and not his heart, would open with………

It’s much simpler than that, and the raw numbers alone tell us how good the Yankees pitching has been. Aside from a team’s won-lost record which, of course, is the only stat that matters, run differential explains everything else. Do you score more runs that your pitching staff allows?

Currently, the Yankees run differential stands at +80, meaning they have scored that many more runs than they’ve allowed. That’s a big deal, especially when you consider that only one team in the American League is better than that. They would be the Houston Astros who are better than anybody in everything this season.

Cracking the confidence code

With the exception of the mysterious Masahiro Tanaka, there is not one pitcher on the Yankees starting staff who Joe Girardi does not have confidence in when he hands them the ball for their regular turn in the rotation.

Michael Pineda and Luis Severino have cracked the confidence code this season, and the results have been remarkable, though not necessarily surprising. They always had that electric stuff baseball junkies talk about, and it was only a matter of them knowing they did.

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I called it the “Con” game” in a previous story, but it’s the essential ingredient required for anyone to have, who’s ever stood on a pitching rubber with 45,000 pairs of eyes on you, awaiting your delivery to the plate and the start of action on the field.

In his makeup, Jordan Montgomery seems to already “get it,” and he’s pitching well beyond his actual maturity as a major league pitcher. That’s a rare commodity these days. CC Sabathia had it from the get-go too, and he’s never lost it. Sabathia will always find a way to get hitters out, or even better, get themselves out, having earned a Master’s Degree in the art of pitching many years ago.

Stop the parade of trade making

The Yankees do not need Sonny Gray, Jose you know who, Chris Archer, or anyone else. They have what it takes, barring injuries, to take them to the playoffs and beyond. There is one thing, though.

The Yankees need to begin to my mindful of the innings these guys are pitching. Not so much maybe with Sabathia who is used to the strain of a long baseball season that is stretched even further by the playoffs.

But especially with Montgomery, and to a lesser degree Pineda and Severino, these guys aren’t throwing their usual four or five innings anymore. They’re consistently reaching into the seventh inning in their starts, and that’s bound to pile up as we get into the dog days of summer when the heat is on is more ways than one.

Tanaka is not a mystery at all

Which leads into the next point, which is that Masahiro Tanaka has become the weak link in the chain of starters the Yankees send out there. And I don’t care if he goes out there and throws a 1-0 shutout against the Red Sox tonight, the problem remains the same.

Tanaka, to date, has thrown 1, 872 innings between his time in Japan and the United States. He began his career at the tender age of eighteen. Which means that he has averaged 180 innings over ten years.

The man, if nothing else, is tired. And when you couple the innings with his style of pitching, which is to throw an inordinate number of high arm stress splitters, you’ve got the makings of someone who is not going to be aging gracefully in a major league uniform.

Tanaka is not a has-been in the same way that Felix Hernandez might be if he can’t transform himself into CC Sabathia. But at the same time, he is far from the ace of the Yankees starting staff. And for that, there should be no argument.

If the playoffs started today….

If the 2017 playoffs started today, Joe Girardi, thinking with his head and not his heart, would open with Sabathia and follow with Pineda and Severino. Depending on scheduling with off days and travel days, Jordan Montgomery would be relegated to the bullpen for a long-relief assignment. Or, if Girardi wanted to go with a hunch, he’d send Montgomery out there and, probably, not miss a beat.

Tanaka would not even figure in the mix. Unless, of course, Girardi wants to become a gambling man hoping that Tanaka would have one of those days where he’s on, instead of off. But Girardi has been around long enough to know that in a short series, you need to put only the best you have on the field.

Or, at least, that’s what I hope he would do.

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