Luis Severino was in a playful mood late Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The day had gone so well that he mused about standing alone in the sun. He felt so strong that he guessed he could throw his fastball at 103 miles per hour. He was dressed for success and he knew it.
“Today when I walked in there, I saw that I looked really good in pinstripes,” Severino said with a smile. “So hopefully I can keep doing that for a long time.”
Severino had cause for optimism. The Yankees had just defeated the San Diego Padres – a team struggling to find the content to match its style – in 10 solid innings in the Bronx. After another win on Sunday, 10-7, they were back on solid ground with a 32-23 record after a slow start.
At least relatively sturdy. The Yankees batted just .234 as a team before Sunday, which would be their worst average in a full season since Mickey Mantle’s retirement in 1968. They are seven games away from first place, trailing Tampa Bay and Baltimore in the second place. the rough American League East, which has no teams with losing records.
And yet, if Severino pitches as he did on Saturday—when only a two-out error in the seventh inning held him back from a seven-inning one-run performance—the outlook seems a lot brighter.
There’s still a long way to go, of course, with plenty of injuries and trades across the league. But no lineup would like to face Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes, an accomplished Carlos Rodón and Severino in a close streak – especially with Severino throwing another easy 97 mph. Domingo Germán, returning from a sticky suspension on Monday, was also solid.
“You see a place where we have an opportunity to have a really complete and talented group that it’s hard to score against,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone. “Sevvy is a man on the front lines. When he’s on the mound, when he’s at his best, he can compete with anyone and any offense.”
The Padres are missing star infielder Manny Machado, who has a hairline fracture in his left hand, and they kept Xander Bogaerts, their permanent contract, out of Saturday’s lineup to rest a sore wrist. Severino mastered their impromptu order, allowing only one hit – a Fernando Tatis Jr. homer. – and three walks in six and two-thirds innings.
It was the second strong start for Severino, who missed the first 48 games of the season with a strained right lat muscle. A similar injury cost him two months last summer and he missed most of the previous three years – 2019 through 2021 – with shoulder and elbow problems.
Severino is an example of the vulnerability of power pitchers. In both of his All-Star seasons, 2017 and 2018, he threw the hardest fastball in the majors among qualified starting pitchers: averaging 97.6 mph both seasons, according to Fangraphs.
Cole was second in fastball speed in those same seasons, spent in Pittsburgh and Houston, and has remained healthy ever since; Severino admiringly called him a “monster.” Perhaps the case of Rodón is more common, the southpaw who underwent shoulder and elbow surgeries with the Chicago White Sox before a 2021 All-Star season.
He followed that up with another one last year, for the San Francisco Giants, then signed with the Yankees for six years and $162 million. A forearm strain and back problems have kept Rodón on the injured list all season, and while he remains inactive, he is now back in the clubhouse and will travel with the Yankees this week for series with the Seattle Mariners and Los Angeles Dodgers .
“It’s nice to be part of the team and to be here, but when I was rehabbing in Tampa, it was hard to look out and look in,” said Rodón. “I wanted to be part of it. Of course you have to try to be a good teammate every day, but it makes it a lot easier when you pitch on a mound.”
Rodón has done just that – at least in the bullpen – and said he no longer feels any discomfort in his back after a cortisone shot in early May. The inactivity changed his calendar — “I’m freaking back February 15,” he said — but he’s finally started the usual six-week build-up a pitcher would get during spring training.
“Yesterday in the bullpen the shapes were there,” said Rodón on Saturday. “Obviously it’s not 158 kilometers per hour, but the readings in the fields — the course of events, the shapes were the same as they have been for the last two years. I feel like I’m going down the hill the same way. Now it’s just part of the build up process, building up to throwing hitters and building more stamina while throwing in games. Those are the steps I need to take.”
Given Severino and Rodón’s injury histories, a lighter load of regular season innings could help in the postseason. That may be a charitable way of looking at the situation, but each team must solve the conundrum to keep their best pitchers fresh for when it matters most.
The Rays and the Orioles have been better than the Yankees so far. But Tampa Bay has no pitchers who have ever pitched 170 innings in a season, and Baltimore has two: Cole Irvin, who is in the minors, and Kyle Gibson.
The Toronto Blue Jays are the only team in the majors to use just five starting players this season, but staying steady hasn’t led to success; the team has been on a downward spiral since the Yankees took three of four at Rogers Center in mid-May. And while Chris Sale is finally thriving again for the Red Sox, the rest of Boston’s patchwork rotation has a lot to prove.
In that context, third place in the AL East doesn’t seem so crazy. The Yankees are imperfect, but if rotational strength matters most in the long run, they should be just fine.