The Yankees are in first place and it's not only because of Judge and the offense
The Yankees have also been one of the top run prevention teams in baseball this season
By
Mike Axisa
•
5 min read
Hands down, the most lopsided series in baseball this past weekend took place at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees swept the division rival Orioles and none of the three games were all that close:
- Friday: Yankees 8, Orioles 2 (box score)
- Saturday: Yankees 16, Orioles 3 (box score)
- Sunday: Yankees 14, Orioles 3 (box score)
The final tally: Yankees 38, Orioles 8. Yikes. Friday's game was actually tied 2-2 after five innings before the Yankees broke the game open against the Baltimore bullpen. That was the only competitive game of the series. The Yankees scored six runs in the first inning Saturday and five runs in the first inning Sunday.
The @Yankees scored at least 5 runs in the 1st inning of consecutive games for the first time since a DH on 8/25/1939. (via @EliasSports) pic.twitter.com/HH0qLrLEYP
— MLB Stat of the Day (@MLBStatoftheDay) June 11, 2017
Overall, the Yankees are now 37-23 this season and have a four-game lead in the AL East. Their plus-115 run differential is the best in baseball. Even better than the Astros (plus-98). That's not surprisingly considering New York has scored the most runs (353) and allowed the second fewest (238) this season.
That second number is a surprising. The runs allowed. Only the Dodgers (219) have allowed fewer runs than the Yankees this season. Here are the top run prevention teams on a per game basis:
- Dodgers: 3.42 runs allowed per game
- Diamondbacks: 3.91
- Astros: 3.94
- Yankees: 3.97
- Rockies: 4.18
That is a very interesting group of teams, isn't it? The Dodgers being at the top isn't a shocker given their pitching depth and pitcher friendly home ballpark. The other four teams all play in hitter's parks though, especially the Rockies, and both the Astros and Yankees play in the American League, so their pitchers don't get to face the other team's pitcher. They have to face a DH.
Coming into the season, the pitching staff was expected to be a weakness for the Yankees. The starting rotation, specifically. Masahiro Tanaka was one of the best starters in baseball last season, though he's been pitching with a partially torn elbow ligament since 2014, and who knows how long that will hold up? CC Sabathia was solid last season but is nearing the end of his career. How much would he decline? Michael Pineda is a perpetual enigma. The fourth and fifth spots had to be decided with a spring training competition.
Despite all those questions, it wasn't until Sunday, their 60th game of the season, that the Yankees used a sixth starter. The Yankees, Cardinals, and Braves were the only teams in baseball that had used only five starters this season heading into the weekend. The Braves used a sixth starter for the first time Saturday, during a doubleheader, which means the Cardinals are now the only team in baseball to use just five starters in 2017. But I digress.
The Yankees used a sixth starter Sunday because, oddly enough, they wanted Tanaka to avoid the Orioles. Tanaka has been one of the worst pitchers in baseball this season. The worst, in fact. His 6.55 ERA ranks 85th among the 85 pitchers with enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. The Yankees pushed Tanaka back a day so he could face the Mike Trout-less Angels in pitcher friendly Anaheim on Monday rather than the homer happy Orioles in Yankee Stadium on Sunday. Smart move!
Tanaka has been awful this season. Truly terrible. And yet, the Yankees are in first place because the other four starters in the rotation have been so good. Sabathia has continued to be solid, Pineda has found some consistency, Luis Severino is breaking out, and rookie lefty Jordan Montgomery has stepped right into the rotation and been reliable. If the season ended today, Aaron Judge would be the unanimous AL Rookie of the Year. Montgomery might be the runner-up. The AL rookie WAR leaderboard, per FanGraphs:
- Aaron Judge, Yankees: +3.9 WAR
- Jordan Montgomery, Yankees: +1.4 WAR
- Ben Gamel, Mariners: +1.3 WAR
- Mitch Haniger, Mariners: +1.3 WAR
- Guillermo Heredia, Mariners: +0.7 WAR
(Aside: How about that Mariners rookie class? Also, the Yankees drafted Gamel and traded him to Seattle in a minor deal last summer. So the top three AL rookies in WAR right now were originally drafted by New York.)
Here are the rotation numbers for the Yankees' five main starting pitchers (Chad Green got the one-time spot start Sunday):
GS | IP | ERA | ERA+ | WHIP | K/BB | WAR | |
Jordan Montgomery | 11 | 63 1/3 | 3.55 | 125 | 1.23 | 2.65 | +1.4 |
Michael Pineda | 12 | 71 2/3 | 3.39 | 131 | 1.13 | 4.41 | +1.0 |
CC Sabathia | 12 | 71 1/3 | 3.66 | 121 | 1.26 | 2.52 | +1.0 |
Luis Severino | 12 | 75 1/3 | 2.75 | 161 | 1.02 | 4.67 | +1.9 |
Masahiro Tanaka | 12 | 66 | 6.55 | 68 | 1.50 | 3.22 | +0.1 |
Tanaka: terrible! Everyone else: pretty good! Add in a lock down bullpen headlined by Dellin Betances -- Aroldis Chapman has been on the disabled list the last few weeks with a shoulder issue, and is due to return this coming weekend -- and the Yankees seem to have found a pitching staff that works for them.
It sure helps that the offense gives this pitching staff plenty of runs to work with too. No doubt about it. In fact, the offense has been so good lately that the Yankees are 9-5 in their last 14 games and Betances, the fill-in closer while Chapman is on the disabled list, did not see a single save opportunity in those 14 games. All nine wins were by at least four runs because the offense is so good and everyone in the rotation aside from Tanaka has kept runs off the board.
New York's pitching staff has been great to date. The question is how long can they continue to produce at this clip? That's the big question. Pineda has pitched well so far, but given his history, how long will it last? He's been very up and down throughout his career. What happens when Severino and Montgomery begin to approach their workload limits for the season, whatever those numbers are? Will Tanaka turn it around or is he permanently broken?
The rotation they have has been plenty good enough to get the Yankees into first place right now, though enough questions still exist that I expect general manager Brian Cashman to look for rotation help at the trade deadline. Both short-term and long-term help since Sabathia and Pineda will be free agents after the season. (Tanaka could opt-out too, though that is looking dicey given his performance so far.) There is no such a thing as too much pitching.
For now, the Yankees are riding a powerhouse offense and a surprisingly solid rotation to the top of the AL East standings. Their postseason odds have already climbed from 15.9 percent on April 1 to 88.3 percent on June 12, per FanGraphs. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year for the Yankees, remember. They gone from fringe contender who could reach the postseason if some things go right to AL East favorites, and their ability to prevent runs, led by the rotation, is a huge part of that.
