Yankees aren’t going anywhere if rotation struggles continue

In last night’s loss to the Red Sox, Sonny Gray was not good at all. His performance continued what has been a recent string of poor outings from the Yankees starting rotation.

Right now the Yankees are struggling in all facets of the game after losing their first series with the Red Sox this season. In particular, the starting rotation was terrible at Fenway and after a hot start to the season, things have taken a downward turn.

Their ace Luis Severino has been the best of the group following two outstanding performances to start his season, but Tuesday night he really struggled. That was the case for Masahiro Tanaka as well until he gave up six runs on Wednesday even after the Yankees jumped out to an 8-1 lead. With them, you don’t worry as much because it’s one bad outing and the conditions they pitched in this week were awful. However, with CC Sabathia on the DL and Sonny Gray and Jordan Montgomery barely able to make it through four innings in their starts, there is cause for concern.

Montgomery will start tonight in Detroit coming off a very bad outing and you hope that he can give the Yankees some length. The bullpen has struggled themselves in the early going and a lot of that might have to do with the heavy workload through the first two weeks.

In 13 games, Yankee starters have thrown 66.2 innings. That’s barely over 5 innings a start (5.09). In the long run, I think the bullpen is going to be just fine and dominate like they’re capable of, but if they keep having to get 12 to 15 outs a game they’re going to wear out quickly.

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Another troubling sign is the performance from Gray through his first three starts. So far he’s looked a lot like the same guy he was last year after the Yankees acquired him at the trade deadline. A pitcher with good stuff, but someone who constantly nibbles around the strike zone which prevents him from getting deep into games.

Coming into the season I thought Gray would be the key to the rotation and a guy who could be a legitimate number two if he could regain his All-star form from 2015. It’s only been three starts, but right now he looks more like a three or a four.

He’s also been terrible against the rival Red Sox with a career 1-5 record and 5.97 ERA after last night’s three inning, six-run performance. That’s a big problem, considering they’re the team the Yankees have to surpass in order to reach their goal of winning the division.

Hopefully, the Yankees can get a healthy CC Sabathia back soon to bring some stability to the rotation because over their last seven games the starting five has an ERA of 8.07. That’s after posting an ERA of 1.64 over their first six games per Jeff Quagliata of the YES Network.

So which stretch shows the real Yankees rotation?

For their sake, they better hope it’s the former because if this team has any hopes of winning a championship they need their rotation to step up. When you look at their biggest competition in the AL with teams like Houston and Cleveland, their rotations are among the best in the game. Because of the Yankees powerhouse offense and potentially dominant bullpen, they don’t need their starters to be elite, but they need them to produce quality starts consistently to give them a chance.

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If they don’t the Yankees certainly have the assets to trade for a frontline starter to make up for their shortcomings. You can bet they’ll do just that if the struggles continue, but in the meantime, it’s time for the current starting five to get back on track.