The Yankee offense had trouble giving Jordan Montgomery some breathing room at the Trop on Tuesday night, but when the bullpen is performing like it has been so far this season, a two-run lead is plenty.
After Montgomery’s best start of the season, Jonathan Loaisiga and Aroldis Chapman shut down the Rays for three shutout innings in a 3-1 victory for the Yanks, who have boasted one of the best relief groups in the league this season, and that’s with Zack Britton still waiting to make his season debut as he recovers from elbow surgery.
Former Yankee reliever Jeff Nelson, who was a part of some elite bullpens himself, can’t help but be impressed as he watched another shutdown performance on Tuesday.
“It’s almost unfair,” Nelson told Moose & Maggie on Wednesday. “You add [Lucas] Leutge in there from the left side, and you’re going to get Britton back here probably at the end of the month or early June. Chad Green has been great except for the one mistake he made to [Jose] Altuve against the Astros.”
Loasiga’s two shutout innings on Tuesday dropped his season ERA to 2.61, and aside from a rare clunker against the Nationals last week, when the defense did him no favors, he has been superb, allowing just two earned runs in 20.1 innings when taking out that outlier against Washington. Armed with a 99 mph fastball, Loaisiga has become a huge piece of Aaron Boone’s bullpen, with an ability to pitch multiple innings and in high leverage spots.
“Loaisiga, when they tried making him a starter, sometimes guys just can’t start and all of a sudden they move him to the bullpen, and I think it’s because he wears No. 43 that he’s had so much success so far,” Nelson laughed, a nod to his former number when he was in pinstripes.
The bullpen helped along what had been a struggling starting rotation at the beginning of the season, at least in terms of length. But over the last three weeks, the rotation has picked up its workload and posted some of the best numbers in the league. Since April 18, the rotation has the best FIP and the second best ERA and WHIP in all of baseball, and it’s only made the bullpen more effective.
“They’ve been outstanding in the back end, and it’s nice to see,” Nelson said. “But at the same time, if you look at the starts they’ve had over the past couple weeks, [Jameson] Taillon is going deep into games, [Corey] Kluber in his last three or four starts has gone deep into games, and you have [Gerrit] Cole.”
Of course, the highlight of the bullpen this year has been Chapman, who battled through a fingernail issue on Tuesday night to log another scoreless inning, extending his shutout streak to 14 straight innings to start the season. With his new splitter, Chapman has returned to elite form, striking out 30 batters so far this season, and the Yankees have to feel good with a lead in the later innings this year, much like how Joe Torre felt when he would hand the ball over to Nelson and company.
“We had so many good starters that the bullpen had to worry about six or seven outs to get to Mariano [Rivera], and that’s basically what this team has to worry about,” Nelson said. “Six or seven outs, and then Chapman is lights out. It’s almost unfair that he’s added that third pitch.”
Listen to Nelson’s full interview with Moose & Maggie below!
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