Yankees: A-Rod breaks down Luis Severino’s Cy Young transformation

There are two things we know for sure; one, Alex Rodriguez is exceptionally astute in his role as a color analyst for Fox Sports; and two, the Yankees World Series chances hinge on the right arm of Luis Severino.

For those that wondered if Luis Severino’s stellar 2017 campaign was a case of the 24-year-old right-hander coming too far too fast, following his first two starts of the new season, the Yankees ace confirmed he’s here to stay.

Sevvy earned his second win on Wednesday night against the Rays, striking out seven batters in 7.1 innings pitched. Allowing just two runs on five hits and one walk, Severino faced the minimum amount of hitters in five of the final six frames he worked.

Of his total 93 pitches, 63 were for strikes — bringing his impressive early stat line to 2-0 with a 1.38 ERA, 0.769 WHIP, 9.7 SO/9, 4.2 H/9 and zero home runs allowed.

By now you’ve probably heard the story about how working with Hall of Famer, Pedro Martinez, during the winter of 2016 was instrumental in Severino’s turnaround. I mean, the guy went from spending most of the prior season at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to one that finished top three for the AL Cy Young Award in less than 12 months time.

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However, some of the technical aspects of his transformation were foreign to the casual baseball fan until now.

On Wednesday night’s episode of MLB Whiparound on FS1, former Yankee, Alex Rodriguez, demonstrated the finer points of Severino’s emergence from a thrower, to a pitcher.

According to A-Rod, Pedro Martinez instructed Sevvy to make two straightforward changes. The first was to simplify his mechanics; and the second, to work on improving his deception.

Instead of Sevvy’s original windmill-like motion, that exposed much of the ball from the onset of his delivery, Martinez coached the young Dominican to keep his hand inside the glove longer, held tight at the belt buckle, creating a more concise, fast-paced delivery to the plate.

This type of “hidden” motion fails to allow the batter much time to pick up the flight of the ball, which was primarily helpful to the overall effectiveness of Severino’s changeup, which plagued him for most of his miserable 2016 major league season.

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With a fastball capable of reaching speeds of 99-mph-plus, a darting 90-mph slider, and a jumping changeup, that dances in the strike zone in the mid-80s, Rodriguez stated that he believes this could be the year Severino walks away with his first Cy Young Award.

Severino will be looking to become the first Yankees’ Cy Young Award winner since Roger Clemens did so in 2001.