The absence of Luis Severino has hurt the Yankees starting rotation this season, but the five guys who have made the most starts have pitched pretty well.
Manager Aaron Boone hasn’t been able to rely on the five starters he planned to coming into the season, but that hasn’t been enough to keep the Yankees out of first place in the AL East.
In fact, the five pitchers who have made the most starts for New York this season have done a really good job of keeping this team in a lot of ball games.
As always, some pitchers are always going to distinguish themselves over their peers. That’s true with this rotation as well. Several members of the Yankees rotation deserve All-Star consideration while at least one hurler needs to be concerned about his status with the organization.
This piece will assign a grade to each of the five pitchers who have made the most starts this season. In other words, Jonathan Loaisiga and Chad Green miss out since they’ve only made three and one start respectively. We dive in with a look at the veteran leader of the staff.
CC Sabathia
Sabathia may be on the Injured List now, but he’s enjoyed a really good season to date. Having your projected No. 5 starter throw 41.1 innings with an ERA of just 3.48 is a massive advantage for the Yankees.
The key for Sabathia moving forward will be continuing to pitch at something close to this level as the innings start to pile up on his arm and body. It’s no secret that he’s no longer the power pitcher that he was during his youth.
Instead, he gets by on guile, smoke and mirrors now. Any slight injury reduces his stuff from passable to unacceptable.
No matter what concerns there may be about Sabathia moving forward, there can’t be any argument that he’s enjoyed a great start to his 2019 campaign. There’s only one reasonable grade for a No. 5 starter pitching this well.
Grade: A