The Yankees are typically known for their explosive offense, but the story of their recent hot streak has been the team’s shutdown rotation, which continued to dominate on Saturday afternoon.
Gerrit Cole, even without his normally historic command, tossed seven shutout innings in a 7-0 win against the White Sox, making it five straight wins for the Yanks and four straight outings where their starter hasn’t allowed a run.
The stretch began after Cole had an uncharacteristically poor performance in Texas. Corey Kluber set the tone with a no-hitter on Wednesday night, followed by seven shutout innings from Domingo German in Thursday afternoon’s win. Jordan Montgomery faced a tough Chicago lineup on Friday night and threw seven shutout innings with 11 strikeouts, a career high.
“I think we’re getting some continuity together,” Cole said. “I thought the Texas series was a really good example. Obviously I started the series poorly, but as a group we finished the series strong and made our adjustments.”
Cole continued the trend on Saturday, pitching through three walks to become the fourth straight Yankee starter to pitch at least seven innings without allowing a run, which is just the second time in franchise history that a rotation teamed up to achieve that feat, the only other coming in 1932, when Johnny Allen, Lefty Gomez, Red Ruffing and George Pipgras did it in a World Series-winning season.
Now on a streak of 30 straight scoreless innings, the Yankee rotation has become a major asset in a season where it was considered its biggest question mark when the season began. Kluber, fresh off the first no-hitter for the Yanks since 1999, has a 1.78 ERA in his last five starts, while German has pitched to a 1.93 ERA in six starts since coming back from the alternate site. Montgomery had one clunker against the Orioles in his last five starts, but even when including those five runs allowed in three innings, he still has a 3.67 ERA in that span.
With Cole as the bonafide ace, the Yanks are now looking for Jameson Taillon to come around and round out one of the best rotations in baseball, which this group has certainly looked like of late.
“Everybody’s been feeling good since the day we came in,” Cole said. I understand the questions were there coming in, but on a day-to-day basis…everybody has been ready to do their job. In that sense, I’m not surprised.”
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