In the middle of Rangers fever, Instagram and the nature of the new Yankee Stadium, it’s tough to get a June crowd rocking the way you would an October crowd.
Sadly, the nature of the beast these days. However, Thursday night was one of those nights where you could tell the new Yankee Stadium was very much alive and well.
Jameson Taillon was two innings away from making history, but at the same time the outcome of the ballgame was very much in doubt.
The stadium crowd was living and dying on every strike, every pitch and every out.
Taillon lost the perfect game in the 8th inning and surrendered a run, but in many ways the Yankee crowd and Anthony Rizzo was not going to let the pitching performance go wasted.
The Yankees came back and won the game. Yankee Stadium was going bananas and I was in quite the good mood.
Little did I know, Taillon’s performance on Thursday night was just part one of a Yankee starter flirting with perfection.
Friday, the ace on paper Gerrit Cole was nothing short of brilliant against the Detroit Tigers.
Cole took a perfect game into the 7th inning.
Back to back starts with two guys seriously flirting with perfect games? I watch a whole lot of baseball, that simply doesn’t happen.
On Saturday, Luis Severino wasn’t flirting with a perfecto, but he delivered a 1 hit, 7 inning shutout masterpiece.
I know the Tigers lineup is nothing to write home about, but it will be tough to imagine three starts in a row from teammates being better than Taillon, Cole and Severino in 2022 throughout the sport.
The Yankees are rolling every which way so far this season and their starting pitching has hands down been the biggest reason.
Entering the 2022 season, I expected Gerritt Cole to be the ace of the staff and everything else would fall into place.
I didn’t expect that the highest era for a Yankee starter would be Jordan Montgomery’s 3.02, which is 14th amongst starters in the American League.
I thought this Yankee rotation would surprise people, because I expected a resurgent year from Severino and I believed in Cortes.
Could I have imagined this would be what the rotation would look like in the middle of June?
Not in a million years.
The last time the Yankees received high quality starting pitching like this, the end result was a parade down the Canyon of Heroes.
It’s premature to start thinking about that, but it’s not premature thinking about the possibility of multiple Yankee starters finding their way to Los Angeles for the All-Star Game.
I know the Fab 5 has branding rights, but the Yankees have a Fab 5 of their own.
A Fab 5 on the mound in the Boogie Down Bronx.
You can listen to my podcast New York, New York on The Ringer Podcast Network every Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday nights on Spotify & Apple Podcasts. You can watch me nightly on Geico Sportsnight after Mets postgame on SNY.
