Yankees ace Luis Severino not seeing eye to eye with Pedro Martinez

Hall of Famer turned TBS analyst Pedro Martinez recently said Luis Severino personally told him he wasn’t healthy for part of this season, to which the Yankees ace vehemently denied.

With Luis Severino scheduled to pitch Game 3 of the ALDS, there’s nothing like a bit of gossip surrounding the Yankees ace to get the juices flowing.

Prior to the Yankees Wild Card win over the A’s, Pedro Martinez, who works as an analyst for TBS, took time out of the broadcast to let the world know that Severino made him aware that he wasn’t completely healthy during the second half of the regular season — and that the club needed him on the mound, hence his decline in productivity.

As reported by Dan Martin of the NY Post:

“I didn’t know until I finally spoke to Severino that Severino wasn’t totally healthy, and they could not afford to stop him from pitching,’’ Martinez said on the show. “So that ended up affecting the Cy Young-type of season that he was having and affecting his performance when they needed him the most.”More from Yankees NewsYankees chose worst possible player to ring in New Year on 2023 team calendarYankees make upside play, sign former Rangers top prospect outfielderMichael Kay’s Anthony Volpe story will get Yankees fans amped for Opening DayNo, Yankees should not acquire Trevor Bauer for 2023Yankees’ Marwin González replaces Red Sox LF in Japan in logical next step

While it’s true that Severino was far-less effective post-All-Star break — and he and Martinez do have a relationship, as the two worked out together during the winter of 2016 in their native Dominican Republic, the 24-year-old Severino made it clear he never said anything about an injury to the former Red Sox star.

I don’t know where he got that, but I didn’t say [anything] about [being] hurt,” Severino said. “If you hear that from Yankees staff or something like that, maybe you can believe it, but I don’t know where you get that from. Like I always say, I care about my arm and being healthy. So I’m not going to go out there and compete if I’m not healthy.”

A Cy Young candidate during the first half of the 2018 season, Severino was 10-2 with a 2.74 ERA in 15 starts prior to the Midsummer Classic. In the 17 starts that followed, Sevy pitched much more tentatively, going 9-6 with a 3.99 ERA.

Whether fatigue or dead-arm played any part in Severino’s less than stellar summer, Martinez’s supposed declaration of an injury to the Yankees No. 1 pitcher is not only inflammatory if untrue, but insanely underhanded if indeed accurate — considering Severino credited much of his 2017 success to the Hall of Famer.

Despite the minor blip in the radar, Severino will look to build off his solid, yet shortened Wild Card start — when he tossed four innings of shutout ball while striking out seven and allowing two hits.

With the home crowd behind him once again, Severino needs to control the strike zone early, and perhaps get a few more calls on the outside of the plate, than he did against Oakland — to keep his pitch count down.

Severino’s 10-2 record and 2.74 ERA this season at Yankee Stadium, including seven innings of one-run ball the last time he faced the Sox on Sept. 19, should give him all the confidence needed to put the Yankees up 2-1 in the ALDS.