As long as Joe Torre has been managing in The Bronx, he has preached the necessity of starting pitching, espoused the virtues of aces like Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, Andy Pettitte and David Wells. But over the past 10 games, the Yankee bullpen has been dominant.
Led by Steve Karsay, a Flushing product, the bullpen finished off a 9-2 rout of Oakland with 21/3 scoreless innings. And those goose eggs on the scoreboard are becoming the norm for Yankee relievers.
The bullpen hasn’t allowed a run in its last 10 games, a stretch of 20 innings. Over that span opposing batters are just 7-for-68. When told of that statistic, Torre just grinned and knocked on his desk.
“We’re certainly capable [of this],” Torre said. “[Mike] Stanton’s done a great job. He had a mediocre spring. But when the bell rings, he’s on his game. Karsay is using both sides of the plate. He’s always been able to throw the ball hard, but his command has been real good.”
Real good could describe the bullpen as a whole. That run of success is made all the more stunning by their wretched slump over the previous 11 games, allowing opposing batters to hit .311 and surrendering 21 runs in 29 innings for a 6.52 ERA.
“I think we’re pitching pretty good,” said Karsay, a Christ The King grad who signed a four-year, $22 million deal this offseason. “We have a lot of new guys and we’re just getting settled in and getting comfortable with each other.”
When Oakland loaded the bases against Clemens with two out in the seventh – Karsay came on and got Frank Menechino to ground out to end the threat. He pitched a scoreless eighth, and Randy Choate survived an adventurous ninth.
“It’s been an [adjustment] coming back here,” Karsay said. “I thought I was going to be in tune with everything, but it’s been 10 times harder than I thought, coming back to New York.
“It’s just a matter of getting comfortable, doing the same thing over and over like [the movie] Groundhog Day.”
The Yanks will be happy if he pitches like this every day.