The Yankees have the best starting pitching in baseball

The Yankees currently have the best starting pitching in baseball, and I can’t believe it took me this long to say it. And even better, it’s a staff custom made for the playoffs.

The Yankees, over the years, have always been a team based on power. Hence, the nickname, The Bombers. But when you step back to look at the starting staff they’ve assembled, for instance, to face the Red Sox this week, you begin to appreciate better what they’ve accomplished this season and what is yet to come in the playoffs.

When you can send more than a one-two punch out there like the Astros now can with Justin Verlander and Dallas Keuchel, when he’s healthy, or the Red Sox with Chris Sale and Drew Pomeranz (of late), or the Dodgers with Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish, you know you’ve got something pretty powerful no other team has.

CC Sabathia has already beaten the Red Sox. On tap is Sonny Gray tonight, followed by Masahiro Tanaka and then, perhaps the best right hander in the American League if you tie Corey Kluber‘s hands behind his back, Luis Severino.

Tell me there’s another team in baseball that can match those four in a short playoff series. Okay, maybe the Dodgers come close when you add Alex Wood and Rich Hill. But they’re in the other league, and the Yankees don’t need to worry about them until the World Series if both teams can make it that far.

No, this is something extraordinary we see this year. In recent years, only the 1998 Yankees had a rotation that challenges this one. That team’s starters, Andy Pettitte, David Wells, David Cone, and Orlando Hernandez are nothing to sneeze at either, but I don’t think any of them come close to the put-away stuff a Gray or Severino has at their disposal.

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In fact, you could say the only problem Joe Girardi will face (well, actually it’s two problems) is deciding who to pitch when and how often. The one-game shootout the Yankees will almost inevitably be required to play presents his first problem.

Who’s your “Ace”? Your go-to guy who’s going to go out there in that game to give you six or seven innings of one or two-run pitching. You know, the one you have the most confidence in.

And then, what do you set for the order of your rotation in the ALDS and ALCS series? It can’t be a simple lefty-righty thing since Sabathia is the only southpaw. Do you go with experience making Sabathia the hands down choice, or maybe you go with the hot hand, which would be Gray if the season ended today.

Decisions, decisions. No doubt it’s a lot better than the Red Sox, though, who would prefer Sale and four days of rain. Or the Orioles who have no pitching at all.

My choice and I’m sticking to it, is CC Sabathia to pitch the shootout, followed by Gray, Tanaka, and Severino in that order for the first playoff round. What say you?

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