Marcus Stroman Provides Latest Sign of Optimism for Struggling Yankees Rotation.. full details below ⏬
If Marcus Stroman’s performance on Sunday, August 11 against the Texas Rangers is any indication, he’s picked a good time to get back on track for the New York Yankees.
Even though it only lasted five innings, Stroman gave his finest performance since June, holding the Rangers to 1 run on 4 hits. Contrast that with his last eight starts, in which he pitched to a 6.87 ERA with 13 more hits allowed than innings pitched and opponents batting .325 against him.With the Yankees’ rotation about to get deeper with the upcoming return of Clarke Schmidt, Stroman made his case to keep taking the ball every five days.“I’m not someone who loses confidence regardless of a few outings,” Stroman said after the game, per The Athletic’s Brendan Kuty. “My confidence is pretty stuck there where it is, regardless of what I’m going through. I go out there with the same confidence each and every start.
Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it don’t.”This time it did, and Yankees manager Aaron Boone was able to shed some light on why.“He stayed out of the heart of the plate a lot more,” Boone said, according to MLB.com’s Bill Ladson.
“I thought his stuff was crisp. I probably went a little long with him today because he hasn’t been anywhere near that pitch level in a while. Maybe he was a little tired out there going back out there in the sixth. But I thought he stayed away from dangerous places. He was able to put the ball in the ground.”Stroman threw 89 pitches overall with 52 for strikes.
His ground ball percentage matched his highest since June 11 (56.3%) while he gave up his lowest fly ball percentage since April 10 (12.5%).
