The Yankees have a battle brewing for the fifth spot in their rotation, and neither candidate seems to be backing down.
Domingo German, having not pitched in a meaningful big-league game since September of 2019 due to an 81-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy, has been pitching like he never left, tossing nine shutout innings with 13 strikeouts, while allowing just five hits and one walk. But Deivi Garcia, who showed plenty of promise in 2020, has been showing strong results himself, allowing the same number of hits in 11 innings of work, along with 12 strikeouts and just two earned runs.
Both of those runs came in his first outing against the Phillies on March 4, but since then, the 21-year-old has tossed nine innings and allowed just one unearned run, and when he faced Philadelphia again on Friday night, he turned in three hitless innings and delivered another strong case for his name to be penciled into the fifth spot in the rotation when the regular season begins.
Garcia pitched 34.1 innings in 2020, and even took the mound to start game two of the ALDS (though he was quickly relieved by J.A. Happ in a controversial decision), and believes that body of work is helping him in his quest to be a regular starter with the Yanks this season.
“Definitely the experience,” Garcia said through his interpreter after Friday’s outing. “You get the experience, last year I had an opportunity to pitch and see big league hitters at that time. Today, you face a team with a stacked lineup that pretty much would be their regular lineup. You get the experience to face them and understand what kind of hitters they are…experience is key there.”
Garcia has particularly relished his recent outings, as opposing teams are beginning to throw out lineups that will look very much like the ones they’ll have on Opening Day.
“It’s big when you get to face good hitters, big league hitters, and you find yourself in a situation where you need to execute a pitch and get the results you want,” Garcia said. “You definitely get confidence from that, because you go through the experience and it gives you that belief.”
Garcia felt he gained some valuable experience in Friday’s outing, when he walked the bases loaded with one out in the first inning, but gathered himself and escaped the jam by forcing a red-hot Odubel Herrera to fly out before striking out Andrew Knapp looking to escape the threat.
It wasn’t the cleanest outing, but in a way, it may have been necessary in Garcia’s quest to prove himself as a trustworthy starter than can navigate trouble when it arises.
“You know where you find yourself in that situation, and I think that was it,” Garcia said. “Just executing the pitch and not being too fine with it.”
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