Yankees: If someone had to throw a clunker, it’s good it was Sonny Gray

The Yankees, very untypically, received one of those unwanted clunkers from one of their starting pitchers. But if someone was bound to throw one, they couldn’t have picked a better pitcher to do it.

The Yankees, when they check the boxscore for yesterday’s loss to the Orioles, will see something rather unusual on the line for their starting pitcher. Four innings pitched, six hits, two walks, a big three-run home run, and five big runs surrendered means only one thing, the guy threw a clunker, and he did not give his team a chance to win.

But if Joe Girardi was forced to pick someone on his staff to break the string of quality starts, he couldn’t make a better choice than Sonny Gray, who trudged to the dugout, head down, after only 80 pitches.

And that’s because Gray will dust himself off, and move on to the routine preparing himself for his next start beginning today.

Other choices, beware!

This, as opposed to Masahiro Tanaka, for instance, having the same line in his next start. With all the questions raised again and, “Oh, here we go again with this guy.” Not that the issues wouldn’t have merit based on the up and down season Tanaka has had.

It’s just that Tanaka has finally reached the point where Girardi finally has confidence in handing him the ball. And the matter gets more grave with the playoffs approaching.

And then you have a 24-year old who is well on his way to serious consideration in the Cy Young vote, striking out batters with 101 mph fastballs and getting them to wave at sliders darting off the plate at the last split second.

Luis Severino could probably handle a clunker now, but he doesn’t need one. Oh, you could say, I guess, if he’s going to have a bad game, let it be now. True, but this is still a very young man who has gone two months without experiencing failure, with a 2.09 ERA since the All-Star break to back it up.

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Better he just keeps rolling. I’m not suggesting Severino is fragile. The time for the test will come soon when he’s handed the ball for his first start in the playoffs. I’m just saying, it’s better to let a sleeping dog lie still. Or in Severino’s case, to hope he carries the roll he’s on for another month.

It’s a rare occasion when a pitcher has his best stuff and all his pitches working on the same day. More typically, a pitcher goes through a process of elimination as the game progresses, settling on the

one or two pitches that will be his “out pitch” for that day.

And sometimes, all that seeking is for naught because it turns out he doesn’t have an out pitch, or at least one he can find before the damage comes.

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This was the case with Sonny Gray yesterday when nothing was working for him, and too many of his pitches were wild in the strike zone.

It happens. But if it was going to happen to one of the Yankees starts, it couldn’t have happened to a better guy.