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New York Yankees: Breaking Down Luis Severino’s First Career Start

By Michael Papandrea

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New York Yankees’ top prospect Luis Severino made his major league debut Wednesday night against the Red Sox, and showed why the Yankees decided to keep him at the trade deadline. He pitched five innings, allowing one earned run on two hits with seven strikeouts, and no walks. The Yankees’ offense came into the game having averaged nine runs, but the bats were unable to do much for the rookie as he was handed the loss with a final score of 2-1.

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Yes, there were a lot of positive takeaways from the outing, but upon further review of the footage from last nights game, there is certainly room for improvement. That shouldn’t be a surprise, as no pitcher is perfect after one start in the big leagues. Here are the things I liked from the start, and the things I believe need to be improved on over the course of his rookie season.

The Good:

Despite getting to three-ball counts six different times, he never gave in to the batter. He always challenged them by either throwing a strike, or a pitch too close to take. He was a bulldog competitor on the mound, and he had the composure of a guy who has pitched in the big leagues before. For example, in the fourth inning after a lead off home run by David Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez came to bat.

With the way he pitched to Ramirez, you wouldn’t have even known that he had just surrendered a no doubt homerun. He got ahead of him, 1-2, and after Ramirez fouled off a couple and took a ball, Severino got him to chase the slider for strike three.

Speaking of the slider, MLB Gameday doesn’t know what to call it. At times its a 90 MPH four-seam fastball that breaks away, and at others it has the more classic movement of a slider. To me, it looks more like a cutter at times, and it was very effective in keeping hitters off-balanced. He used it to get Xander Bogaerts looking for his first career punch out.

The most important takeaway was the fact that he kept the high powered Yankees’ offense in the game. If he can keep doing that, the wins will surely follow. He doesn’t have to be the ace right now; he just needs to go out and compete.

The Bad:

He fell behind on way to many batters. I’m sure nerves played a big part of that, but out of the 18 hitters Severino faced, he started 13 off with ball one. He especially struggled to get ahead in the count on David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez, two prominent players from his native country, the Dominican Republic. I only mention that because at the young age of 21, these are two players that Severino has probably idolized on his road to the big leagues. In Ortiz’s first at bat, he fell behind 3-0, but got him to ground out into the shift on a fastball that missed its intended location and stayed in the center of the plate. The second time up, Severino was not as lucky.

After falling behind, 2-0, Severino threw the same fastball that he got away with in the first at bat, and Big Papi did what Big Papi does.

Even though Severino was charged with one earned run, you would have liked to see him pick up his teammate, Chase Headley, after he bounced a ball that got away from Mark Teixeira. That advanced the runner to second base and the next batter, Alejandro De Aza drove him in with a double that just missed clearing the fence. The pitch to De Aza was that cutter, but it stayed flat and was left on the inner middle of the plate for him to drive.

Of course, the veteran Headley should not have gotten the rookie into that situation in the first place. He would of had back-to-back 1-2-3 innings to start his career, but instead, ended up pitching to an extra three batters and expended nine additional pitches.

He wasn’t able to afford any extra pitches, and was taken out of the game after throwing 94 pitches. The reason why he threw so many pitches, despite giving up only two hits and walking no one was because only five batters were retired on four pitches or less. Three of those five were retired on four pitches and he didn’t have any one-pitch outs. That makes sense, given that this is the first time the Red Sox are seeing this pitcher, so I don’t expect high pitch count performances to be a trend.

Next Start Improvements

The biggest thing heading into the next start is to get ahead in the count. He will be on the road facing the Cleveland Indians, where I fully expect him to make it deeper into the game. He will also need to be careful with lefties Michael Brantley and Carlos Santana. The only two Red Sox to get hits off him were De Aza and Ortiz, both left-handed batters.

Next: 5 predictions for Yankees vs. Blue Jays

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