Look, you can blame Luis Severino for a lot of the cataclysm that visited Yankee Stadium on Thursday night — he was a special kind of awful across 2 ²/₃ innings — but this wasn’t a one-man baseball burlesque, this 14-1 Baltimore butchering that goes right into the dustbin (save for Isiah Kiner-Falafa’s clean and tidy ninth-inning relief appearance).
(That’s IKF’s fourth mop-up appearance already this year, which is astonishing.)
The Yankees’ offense was in witness protection all game. Catcher Jose Trevino and first baseman DJ LeMahieu channeled Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez in the fifth inning, and not in any of the good ways that might happen, when they allowed a harmless pop fly to fall untouched between them, the way Nos. 2 and 13 famously did one August day back in 2006.
The crowd, 39,766 strong, booed lustily at that one, as they did every time Aaron Boone hopped out of the dugout to change pitchers.
You don’t lose a game by 13 runs and not have plenty to grumble about as you’re sitting in traffic on the Deegan afterward.
“No fun to go through,” Boone said. “No one likes getting beat over the head.”
So blame all of them.
Boo all of them.
But Severino is the one who will wear this, and maybe not merely for a night.
He was hammered for 10 hits and seven earned runs before his mercy-yank.
That makes it 19 hits and 14 earned runs across 6 ²/₃ innings in his last two outings, including Saturday in St. Louis, and that adds up to an 18.90 ERA in any league.
It’s not just a recent problem.
Severino started the season late, then pitched well in his first two starts, against the Reds (pre-Elly De La Cruz) and Padres.
But he has made seven starts since then.
Except for one dominant outlier (six innings, zero runs against the powerful Rangers June 24) this is his season since the start of June:
- Seven games.
- 25 ¹/₃ innings pitched.
- 48 hits.
- 33 earned runs.
- ERA: 11.72.
“Physically he looks OK to me,” Boone insisted. “His execution isn’t there, so we’ve got to dig on everything to get him locked in — delivery, deception, everything.
“We’ve got to get under the hood, get after it. Everyone knows what kind of pitcher he is. We have to get him there.”
It’s not pretty.
It’s not good.
And there is more than a whisker of urgency attached to this.
Carlos Rodon will make his Yankees debut Friday at the Stadium against the Cubs.
Nestor Cortes will do a bullpen session Sunday, then a live batting practice next week, then a rehab start or two.
When he’s back — let’s call it Aug. 1, at the latest — the Yankees will have six viable rotation pitchers.
It has kind of been assumed the odd man out would be Clarke Schmidt.
But after a slow start, Schmidt has been awfully good lately, pitching to a 2.76 ERA over his last eight outings.
Severino has been exactly the opposite, and on Thursday night Boone seemed as intent on removing him for his own safety as for his ineffectiveness, since the O’s were whistling 100-mph rockets all over the yard.
Even the two kids given real shots this year — Jhony Brito and Randy Vasquez — have been more competitive on the mound than Severino.
Assuming Severino isn’t hurt, it’s hard to believe the Yankees will pull him from the rotation yet, especially with the All-Star break looming.
But you have to believe Severino has to show something between now and whenever Cortes returns, or else risk banishment to the bullpen (which would benefit nobody) or the discovery of an “injury” so he can work on rebuilding his conviction and restoring Boone’s.
Severino, usually a mask of bulletproof confidence, looked shaken afterward.
“I know the kind of pitcher I am,” said the man who has twice finished in the top 10 of the AL Cy Young voting and was, not so long ago, considered one of the bright pitching talents on the planet.
“I really haven’t been myself. It’s hard to get my head around this but I can’t do anything else but try and try to get better.”
Boone knows.
He sees that the velocity is still mostly there.
But he also knows this isn’t the same guy who was 33-14 with a 3.18 ERA and struck out 450 batters in 384 ²/₃ innings in 2017 and 2018.
“Any time you’ve pitched at his level and have had some of the rough outings he’s had now stacked together, it’s tough,” Boone said.
“He is a very confident guy but that takes a hit.”
Said Severino: “They’re just hitting the ball everywhere. I feel well-prepared mentally to go out ready to compete, and then three or four innings later I’m out of the game.”
Or 2 ²/₃ innings.
The Yankees will give Severino more time because they know what he can be.
But based on what he is, that clock won’t tick forever.
It can’t tick forever.
And if it sounds a little bit louder now, there’s a good reason: Because it is.
