The Yankees took 3 of 4 at home (July 26-29) from the lowly KC Royals. If you were down at the Jersey Shore for a long weekend and weren’t following along, you would probably say .. a sweep would have been great but I will settle for 3 of 4 because we probably lost the Sonny Gray start. Actually the Yankees won that game 7-2 . In fact Sonny Gray pitched well, going 5 innings allowing 3 hits, and 0 runs. He probably would have pitched deeper into the game but he got hit with a come-backer on the thumb of his pitching hand in the 5th inning but stayed in to finish the inning and put himself in line for the win (7-1 vs. sub .500 teams & 1-6 vs. above .500 teams) . X-rays of his thumb after the game came back negative. Unfortunately X-rays for Aaron Judge who was hit in the same game on his right wrist by a pitch from Jakob Junis revealed a chip fracture that won’t require surgery but will keep the Yankee slugger on the DL for at least 3 weeks.
Besides the Judge injury, the other concern in Yankee-land that developed from the series was who lost the game to KC? It wasn’t CC or J.A. Happ who pitched very well in his Yankee debut going 6 innings, allowing 3 hits, 1 run for his 11th win, but it was none other than Yankee ace Luis Severino who suffered the loss, going only 4.1 innings, allowing 8 hits and 6 earned runs. He now has allowed 6 earned runs in each of his last 2 starts. Prior to that, he had not allowed more than 5 earned runs in his previous 28 starts.
Over Luis Severino’s last 4 starts : 19.1 innings, 8.84 ERA , 7 HRs. By comparison, to the start of the season Sevy’s 1st 18 starts : 118.1 innings, 1.98 ERA, 6 HRs. Those are startling numbers, and the reality is .. without Luis Severino pitching like the ace they have grown to rely on since the start of the 2017 season, the Yankees are going nowhere. So now the question becomes, what’s wrong with Severino & how do we fix him ? There have not been a lot of answers to that question coming from the Yankees or even Severino himself.
I have offered insight previously during Severino’s ups & downs. The Yankees used my comments regarding Sevy on the YES Network , so make sure to look my comments in an upcoming column.
