Is Luis Severino the best starting pitcher in baseball? Going back to the beginning of the 2017 season, at least one stat shows that he takes a backseat to nobody.
Severino allowed only one earned run during Monday’s win over the Detroit Tigers. Going back to last season, no pitcher in baseball has as many such outings.
Most Starts of 1 ER or Fewer Since 2017:
Luis Severino 24
Max Scherzer 23
Justin Verlander 22
Jacob deGrom 22— Katie Sharp (@ktsharp) June 4, 2018
It’s hard to argue with that stat. In fact, if anything, the stat alone probably doesn’t give Severino enough credit.
First of all, like Justin Verlander he’s an American League pitcher. As such, he needs to face one more true hitter a game than Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom. Secondly, Severino’s home stadium is one of the best hitter’s parks in all of baseball. Mistakes made at Yankee Stadium frequently end up in the seats. Obviously, he’s not making many mistakes.
It helps that Severino is also missing bats. On Monday — Severino’s 13th start of the year — he struck out his 100th batter of the 2018 season. That tied a franchise record.
Luis Severino reached 100 Ks for year today in his 13th game of 2018.
That is tied for the fewest games needed by a @Yankees pitcher to reach that total in a single season in the last 100 years, along with 2014 Masahiro Tanaka, 1997 David Cone & 1963 Al Downing.#PinstripePride pic.twitter.com/bRF9H86ugd
— OptaSTATS (@OptaSTATS) June 4, 2018
The majority of the attention with the Yankees goes to their offense. But clearly, Severino’s contributions have had a lot to do with the success of the team.