While an unborn baby can see the Yankees need to beef-up their starting pitching, the growing panic around their rotation was pure 'prisoner of the moment' stuff.
Until the Astros stepped in, and stepped up.
Houston made the trade of the season when they snagged Zack Greinke from the Arizona Diamondbacks. Some locals are grousing over the bounty the Astros shipped to Phoenix. Others are griping about the $81 million left on Greinke's contract.
But let's also state the obvious. The Astros have now usurped the perch as the AL chalk to reach the World Series, a place inhabited by the Bronx Bombers since March. When you get a hurler of Greinke's timber, to join two aces already on the staff, you are more than formidable. You are favored.
Of the five MLB starters with the lowest WHIP, Houston has three of them. Justin Verlander (0.81) is first, Greinke (0.94) is second, and Gerrit Cole (1.00) is fifth. (Imagine if they still had Charlie Morton.)
And while Brian Cashman normally waves a supernatural wand around this time of year, it seems the Yanks will suffer a rare shutout. Despite their bottomless lineup and wealth of fine young players, the Yankees GM decided none was worth dealing for what they were being offered. So no Madison Bumgarner. No Trevor Bauer. No Noah Syndergaard or Zack Wheeler. Nada. Even the Mets landed a frontline starter in Marcus Stroman, further italicizing the Yankees' failure to find a pitcher.
No doubt the Yanks like their new corporate coda, which avoids the biblical splurges that often forced them to overpay for overrated players or others who couldn't breathe the thin air of epic expectations in the Big Apple. They like being around the luxury tax threshold, not absurdly above it. And they've also learned to build a team rather than buy one.
But the Yankees needed to make a move, for more than pride or vanity. Their starters have either been in pain or painfully bad. Though the Yanks just beat the Diamondbacks - Greinke's last game for the club - Masahiro Tanaka threw 82 pitches in four innings, allowing eight baserunners and two earned runs. And that's a masterpiece compared to the rotation's latest exploits.
Over their last nine games, Domingo German is the only starter to last five frames, when he allowed three earned runs over 5 1/3 innings during Sunday's win in Boston. Consider the rest of the rotation over their last two trips to the bump. Tanaka has hemorrhaged 14 earned runs over 7.1 innings pitched. CC Sabathia has yielded 15 hits and 11 earned runs over 8 1/3 innings. James Paxton has leaked 14 hits and 11 earned runs over his last 7 1/3 innings. And even German (13-2), the unlikely anchor of the rotation, has allowed 13 hits and 11 earned runs over his last nine innings pitched.
Even if you dismiss their last two turns on the mound as aberrations, four of their five starters have a 4.72 ERA or higher. And if you remove Domingo German from the equation, the other 80% of the staff has a combined record of 25-24, rather incongruous for a team nearly 30 games over .500.
Beyond the bad stats and ugly optics, the Yankees just don't get blanked like this. Whether you love or loathe them, the Bronx Bombers are the emblem of our pastime, the engine that drives commerce and imposes its mighty will on the baseball world. Instead of musing over their souped-up rotation, we're hearing about no-trade clauses and pitchers who refused to play in pinstripes.
In a sour taste of irony, Zack Greinke pitched at Yankee Stadium yesterday. Instead of it being his lone start in the Bronx, it could be the start of several outings between now and October. The Yankees could still get there and win there. But owning October would have been easier had they done something in July.
Twitter: @JasonKeidel
