Determined to end the drought that has kept them out of the World Series since 2009, the New York Yankees are banking on a parlay of power plus pitching.
As the 2024 season inches toward the halfway mark, the concept seems to be working. They entered play Saturday leading the American League East 51-27 record, one-half game better than the Baltimore Orioles, last year’s AL East champs. New York’s .654 winning percentage, and its victory total, were both baseball’s best.
“We’re playing for a lot,” manager Aaron Boone told The New York Post after an 8-1 loss to the visiting Atlanta Braves Friday night. “It’s been a rough week for us. But we’ll get through this stretch.”
In addition to a 4-6 record in their past 10 games, the Yankees have lost three in a row. Compounding the felony, their pitchers have allowed a combined 25 runs in their past two games.
Yankees pitchers get plenty of support from Aaron Judge, who leads both leagues in home runs with 27, and newcomer Juan Soto, a one-time batting champion whose left-handed bat seems a perfect match for the short right-field dimensions of Yankee Stadium. But it hasn’t been clear sailing for the pitching staff.
Defending American League Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole missed the first two months with an inflamed right elbow. He made his season debut on June 19.
Clarke Schmidt, another key starter, went down with a right lat strain on May 30, followed by replacement starter Cody Poteet (right triceps strain) two weeks later.
Of the four remaining pitchers who made at least 15 starts, the best has been rookie Luis Gil. But his bid to become the first 10-game winner in the American League was dashed by the hard-hitting Orioles, who reached him for eight hits, two walks, and seven earned runs in an inning-and-a-third en route to a 17-5 romp on June 20.
Thanks to strong early-season showings by Marcus Stroman, Nestor Cortes, and Carlos Rodón, in addition to Gil, the Yankees opened the 2024 campaign with a string of 76 straight starts of at least 4 1/3 innings pitched. That was not only a franchise record but the seventh-best performance in baseball history.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that Rodón has been roughed up in consecutive starts, pushing his earned run average from 2.93 to 3.86. Before the Braves blasted him Friday night, he had yielded five runs in five innings against the arch-rival Boston Red Sox.
The veteran left-hander, who signed a six-year, $162 million Yankees pact just before the Christmas holidays in 2022, fell behind quickly against Atlanta, yielding a single to Jarred Kelenic on the first pitch he threw and a home run to switch-hitting Ozzie Albies on the second.
“They came out swinging,” he said in the somber clubhouse later. “Two pitches in, two runs down.”
Rodón, a two-time All-Star who’s likely to be picked for the game again, had been 4-0 with a 2.30 ERA at Yankee Stadium before the Braves debacle. In seven straight starts through June 19, he had crafted a sparkling 2.28 earned run average.
After two straight clunkers, however, Rodón is reminding people of how awful he was in 2023, his first with the Yankees. He finished 3-8 with a 6.85 ERA and endured two stints on the injured list, missing a total of 100 team games.
If the staff stays injury-free during the stretch drive, Boone could have six solid starters in Cole, Gil, Stroman, Schmidt, and the two lefties, Rodón and Cortes.
Since most teams feel lucky to find five decent starters, the Yankees could have an abundance of riches.
They will need reliable pitching to pursue their postseason dreams. They have more pennants (40) and more world championships (27) than any other team but have not won a flag since 2009, their first season in the new Yankee Stadium.
In fact, despite a $277 million payroll that ranked second to the Mets among the 30 clubs, they weren’t even one of the six American League teams in the playoffs last fall.
