DETROIT— A whiff-a-thon was held on Monday night at Comerica Park.
Unfortunately for the Yankees, their hitters were largely responsible.
Fortunately for the Yankees, Luis Severino also took part and continued his late-season turnaround.
Severino generated a season-high eight strikeouts and 15 swings-and-misses across seven shutout innings to lead the Yankees to a 4-1 win over the Tigers.
It marked the second straight scoreless outing for Severino, who also tossed 6 ⅔ scoreless innings against the Nationals last week.
Before the back-to-back encouraging starts, the pending free agent had posted a 7.98 ERA through his first 15 starts of the season.
On Monday, Severino scattered five hits while not walking a batter for only the fourth time this season.
He completed seven innings for the first time since his final start of the 2022 regular season.
While neither the Tigers (59-72) nor the Nationals will be mistaken for juggernaut offenses, Severino had struggled to find any kind of success against offenses of any kind during his brutal stretch.
His recent momentum will certainly be put to the test this weekend against the Astros.
For now, though, the Yankees (63-68) were left feeling good for their popular clubhouse presence.
In a battle between two of the least productive offenses in the majors, the Yankees struck out 16 times to the Tigers’ 10.
Tigers rookie right-hander Reese Olson was responsible for striking out 10 Yankees across 4 ⅓ innings.
The first eight outs he recorded all came by way of the punchout.
The Yankees finally broke the scoreless tie in the fifth inning.
Aaron Judge walked and then scored all the way from first on Gleyber Torres’ double to the gap on Olson’s 100th and final pitch of the night.
Judge later had a more leisurely trot around the bases in the seventh inning, when he crushed his 29th home run of the year to snap an 0-for-17 skid (with 10 strikeouts) since last going deep on Thursday.
Gleyber Torres then made it back-to-back, clobbering a 430-foot blast off reliever Beau Brieske to make it a 3-0 lead.
In the eighth inning, Oswaldo Cabrera drove in an insurance run, roping a single to center field that scored Isiah Kiner-Falefa.
The closest the Tigers came to scoring off Severino was when Zack McKinstry tripled with one out in the sixth inning on a fly ball that Kiner-Falefa pulled up on in the gap (after making a strong running catch in the gap an inning earlier).
But with the infield in, Severino got Riley Greene to hit a one-hopper to shortstop Anthony Volpe, whose throw home was scooped by Kyle Higashioka to tag out McKinstry.
A single later, Severino struck out Spencer Torkelson on a 99 mph fastball to escape the threat.
Clay Holmes lost the shutout in the ninth inning when he gave up a home leadoff home run to Akil Baddoo, but recovered to finish off the win.
