To borrow a now famous line from a now famous movie, The
Sandlot, “you’re killing me Smalls!” In case you’ve lived under a rock for the
past 20-or-so years Smalls was one of the main characters in the movie and a
new member to the group of kids who played baseball in their sandlot. Smalls
didn’t know much about the game but he knew he wanted to be accepted, remember
he thought Babe Ruth was a female and not that big of a deal, and this
frustrated the other boys. This quickly caught on and whenever someone was
making something you deemed simple more trouble than it was worth you always
threw out a “you’re killing me Smalls” as a joke and for emphasis. Well you
know what? The Yankees starting rotation, you’re killing me Smalls!
Sure there have been encouraging moments this season to
speak of and I am the last one to conveniently mis-remember them. Luis Severino
has looked much better than his 0-2 start would suggest and it’s okay if he
hasn’t because he’s only set to make his 14th career MLB start
tomorrow in the series finale with Oakland. Masahiro Tanaka had the best start
of the season for the Yankees staff on Sunday out-dueling former teammate
Hisashi Iwakuma and Michael Pineda has seen starts where his control has been
impeccable walking none. The good is far being out shadowed by the bad though
right now and that needs to change.
Heading into yesterday’s series opener the Yankees ranked
dead last, or more commonly known as 15th place, in the American
League in innings pitched out of their starting rotation after the starters had
thrown just 61.2 innings pitched. That looks more impressive after Tanaka’s
seven inning performance on Sunday and it made the average start last 5.2
innings for the team and the team starting ERA drop to 5.25, also the worst in
the American League.
There is some encouraging news though for the Bombers.
Severino is not going to give up twice as many hits as he has innings pitched for
the entire season like he has thus far and I can’t see Nathan Eovaldi allowing
a home run every three innings pitched like he has thus far this year. Bryan
Mitchell should be back eventually and Ivan Nova can always slide into the
rotation if need be at some point this season. Tanaka should be better and
Michael Pineda should be a hell of a lot better. The Yankees staff will be
better, until then though they are killing me. Smalls.
