New York Yankees: What does the slow start from the pitching rotation mean?

The New York Yankees are tied with the 3rd best record in baseball and have been playing very well so far this season. Their offense has been top-notch and has shown that they are never out of any ballgame. New York has gotten off to the best start in awhile. But, believe it or not, they could be a lot better. 

The Yankees offense has been the difference-maker so far this year. The Yankees pitching rotation, on the other hand, has been a huge problem. Obviously, Gerrit Cole has been fantastic for the Yankees and is pitching like an ace as usual. However, the rest of the rotation hasn’t lived up to their expectations at all. Jordan Montgomery seemed to be the only one doing well but yesterday, he gave up 5 runs against the Phillies and couldn’t find his stride. Tanaka is still recovering from his injury so he hasn’t been the same. James Paxton has been the worst for the Yankees. His velocity is down a lot and he can’t seem to put away hitters. JA Happ doesn’t look like he got any better from last year and just seems to be at the end of his career. 

Without the help of the New York Yankees tremendous offense, who knows how good they would be. However, I do think everything will get better. The only pitcher that really scares me, is James Paxton. If you put side-by-side pictures from his release of the ball last year as opposed to this year, it’s totally different. This is causing his velocity to go down. He usually relies on his fastball to put hitters away late in counts but with such low velocity, he’s not blowing pitches by anyone. In fact, his average velocity is down by a whole four miles per hour. That might not seem like a lot, but he used to hit 99 on some pitches and this year the highest he’s gotten to is 94. That’s a huge drop especially for a pitcher that relies so heavily on his fastball.

So, what does this mean?

For the rest of the rotation, I think things will start to come around.. Over the last three years, the Yankees have learned that they need a stellar pitching rotation to survive the postseason. They have had a great offense in each of the last three seasons but have always fallen to opposing teams with great pitching rotations. On paper, the Yankees have a top-five rotation in the league. They are very capable of getting to that point sometime this year, they just need to get in the swing of things. You will have some games in which the offense is cold. That’s when you need your rotation to come up clutch. That is what makes teams great.