Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across Major League Baseball. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Yankees fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.
It has not been a good time to be a New York Yankee of late. While a couple of nights could feasibly be explained by a bout of food poisoning that ran through the clubhouse recently, the truth is the team has been playing rather poorly for a lot longer than a few days.
The biggest offender has been the offense going missing in action with a number of injuries befalling them, but the rotation has also toppled from its perch atop the league during the past month as some rough outings from their starters combined to put them in major deficits that have felt rather hopeless to come back from.
With that in mind, we asked at the start of the week which Yankee starting pitcher looked most concerning to you. We didn’t include Cam Schlittler among the options because he’s been the clear and away ace of the team, even though he’s since looked rather shaky with his most recent start. Hopefully that’s more of a blip on the radar rather than a sign of another problem on the horizon, but regardless he’s not our focus today. The rest of the rotation is, and there were two clear front-runners for who fans were most concerned with.
Gerrit Cole may not be the ace of this team this season, but he’s still one of the team’s aces and an essential part of their rotation. Coming off of Tommy John surgery, there was an expectation that Cole likely wouldn’t be 100 percent when he came back but I don’t think anyone expected him to look strong out of the gate only to come crashing back to reality. Cole did get a bit out of shape during his time on the IL and that could exacerbate his issues on the mound as he’s also compensating for his recovering arm strength, but simply put coughing up four or five runs a start isn’t going to be acceptable. Hopefully as he gets back into game shape he’ll round into form, but right now it is not the Cole of days past that’s running out there every five days.
Right behind Cole in the polling was Ryan Weathers, a fair jump down in the rotation order to the bottom. Despite his role as the fifth starter, Weathers was one of the more impressive pitchers the Yankees had in April and May, more than earning his place and making a conversation around who would get demoted to the bullpen between him and Will Warren once the rotation was fully healthy. Well, that conversation looks a lot different after June now as Weathers posted a 5.55 ERA in five starts across the month. There was a particularly rough stretch to end May and open June where he allowed five-plus runs in three straight starts, but he rebounded to post two strong outings in a row against the White Sox and Tigers before a second outing against Detroit went disastrously and he exited in the second inning. The entire staff has taken a hit recently, but Weathers has arguably looked the worst of the bunch with a penchant for giving up the long ball. Barring another injury, he’ll shift out for Max Fried when he returns from the IL.
Our other two candidates, Will Warren and Carlos Rodón, garnered a fair bit of worry but nothing close to either Cole or Weathers’ numbers. Warren did have a similarly bad June to Weathers, but did so with a bit more consistency as he’s wont to do. Rodón, on the other hand, while being prone to one frustrating inning nearly every time he goes out has been the best of the bunch lately.
These survey results are sponsored by FanDuel.
