After a rollicking start to the year on the west coast, the Yankees head back home to host the Marlins for a three-game set in the Bronx. The team’s starting rotation has been particularly dominant, holding the Giants and Mariners to just two runs in 34 innings as they helped lead New York to a 5-1 record. They’ll face a young Marlins team that also enters play at 5-1 after taking care of business at home against the White Sox and Rockies, last year’s two 100-loss teams. They’ll face a tougher test
this weekend against a rested and, ostensibly, focused Yankees squad. Let’s take a look at the likely pitching matchups, starting with today’s game.
Friday: Will Warren vs. Eury Pérez (1:35 pm ET)
After an inconsistent but promising rookie campaign last year, Will Warren’s sophomore season got off to a decent start last Saturday in San Francisco. While he only went 4.1 innings and allowed seven Giants to reach base, he held his opponents to a single run, working around traffic in an eventual 3-1 victory. After throwing 83 pitches in that start, the right-hander should be prepared to shoulder a full workload today.
Baseball America’s number-seven prospect entering 2023, Eury Pérez burst on the scene that season, pitching to a 3.15 ERA in 19 starts while punching out 108 batters in 91.1 innings. After missing all of the following year due to Tommy John surgery, he didn’t find the same success last year as his ERA jumped to 4.25. Still, many of his underlying metrics suggest he ran into some bad luck and, at 22, the phenom remains one of the most promising young pitchers in baseball. Pérez looked solid in his first outing this year, limiting the Rockies to three runs in seven innings while striking out eight.
Saturday: Ryan Weathers vs. Max Meyer (7:05 pm ET)
After coming over from Miami, Ryan Weathers had a carbon copy of Warren’s season debut, holding a strong Mariners lineup to one run over 4.1 innings. He got more than half of his outs via the strikeout, an encouraging sign after the Yankees retooled his arsenal this offseason, upping his sinker usage while fading his changeup, against which opponents slugged .571 last season. The southpaw will look to leverage his new approach against his former team though, after throwing 77 pitches last time out, he may not yet be ready to shoulder a full 90-plus pitch workload.
Like Pérez, Max Meyer is a former top prospect who’s been waylaid by injury. He has made just 26 starts since debuting in 2022 and pitched to a 5.29 ERA in that time. Now 27, he features a filthy slider as a primary pitch but has struggled to get outs with the fastball (opponents hit .315 against his heater last season). In his first start of the year, Meyer went five innings against Colorado, allowing three runs in an eventual Miami victory.
Sunday: Max Fried vs. Chris Paddack (1:35 pm ET)
Taking advantage of a bevy of early off days, the Yankees are employing a four-man rotation, allowing them to line up ace Max Fried for his third start in the Yankees’ ninth game of the season. He’s looked every bit the pitcher who finished fourth in AL Cy Young voting last year, tossing 13.1 scoreless innings through his first two starts while taking the victory in each. He’s been throwing his four-seamer nearly twice as often as last season and to great effect, holding opponents to one single while striking out six in 10 at-bats ending on the pitch.
He’ll face Chris Paddack. While the veteran posted up last year, making 28 starts to go with five more relief appearances, he struggled mightily, leading all of baseball with 94 earned runs allowed. The Marlins took a flier on their former eighth-round pick from the 2015 Draft, and the reunion got off to a rough start, with the right-hander allowing eight runs in four innings against the White Sox en route to the Marlins’ only loss of the year thus far. Paddack primarily features a fastball and changeup, with several other complementary pitches in the mix.
