On June 12, 2021, Jameson Taillon had one of the worst days of his baseball life.
The Yankees’ right-hander was knocked around by the Philadelphia Phillies, who hung four runs and five hits on him in the first inning, sending Taillon to an early exit after recording just one out.
Taillon called that start “embarrassing” and “humiliating.” Since then, he’s made 20 starts for the Yankees and given them a 3.26 ERA. Opponents have only reached base at a .280 clip since the meltdown in Philadelphia while striking out 95 times in 105.2 innings. In his most recent start, the sixth-year veteran held the Guardians to one run in five innings, getting himself out of multiple jams. After that game, he said he and catcher Jose Trevino “were pretty smart working through traffic,” and even though Cleveland collected seven hits, he “thought the stuff was pretty good.”
Aaron Boone has seen Taillon embark on an encouraging journey since the Phillies stole his lunch money last June.
“Failure — or getting humbled, punched in the mouth, however you want to put it — can be a great teaching tool,” Boone said. “To Jamo’s credit, it was that for him. He made some adjustments last year: using a little more two-seam to go with his four-seam. I think the biggest thing for him this year is the slider. It’s become much more of a factor for him.”
The slider is one of six pitches (along with the two and four-seam fastballs, a curveball, a cutter and a changeup that’s reserved exclusively for lefties so far) that Taillon throws. When Tommy John surgery wiped out the back half of his 2019 season and all of 2020, there were real concerns about whether the pitcher who Pittsburgh selected with the second overall pick in the draft would ever live up to his prospect hype.
His Yankee tenure is off to a good if not incendiary start — pretty much exactly what a team would expect from a mid-rotation starter — but many within the Yankee organization think the best is yet to come.
“Really from the second half of the season last year into the early part of this year, you’ve seen a guy who’s another stage removed from injury,” Boone offered. “It seems to me that the stuff overall is just crisper. There’s no question that the stuff is on another level.”
GETAWAY DAY LINEUP
Thursday was a historic day for the Yankee franchise. For the first time in club history, Tim Locastro and Marwin Gonzalez started a game together.
Locastro got the nod in center field for the afternoon showdown with the Orioles. With Aaron Hicks still on the paternity list (Boone expects him back for the upcoming trip to Kansas City), and Boone’s admitted reluctance to play Giancarlo Stanton in the field three days in a row, Locastro made just his second start of the season.
Gonzalez filled in at shortstop for the second time, giving Isiah Kiner-Falefa a day off. Gonzalez, one of the game’s consummate utility guys, has yet to make an appearance in the outfield this season. Boone said that with the O’s starting lefty Bruce Zimmermann, he thought about inserting Miguel Andujar (who was called up from Triple-A to temporarily replace Hicks) into Thursday’s lineup, but ultimately opted against it.
“Day game after a night game, I feel like [Locastro] gives us that speed element,” Boone said. “Marwin, just wanted to get him in there, [Kiner-Falefa] has gone pretty hard here. I felt like today was a smart day to get Marwin in there and keep him as sharp as we can.”
ROSTER CRUNCH COMING
When the 2022 season began with expanded, 28-man rosters, it was with the stipulation that each team would have to go down to 13 pitchers on May 2. That has already changed, with MLB and the players’ union agreeing that, in the interest of player safety, teams can carry as many as 14 pitchers until May 29.
Right now, the Yankees have 15 pitchers on their active roster, meaning someone will have to go after their three gamer against the Royals this weekend. The Yankee skipper also hinted at the possibility that two pitchers could be moved off the active roster.
“That’ll be a question that we have coming out of the weekend in Kansas City,” Boone said. “Depending on where we are and how we get through this weekend, we’ll have that conversation if we want to go with 13 [pitchers] and 13 [position players] or if we want to go 14 and 12. At that point we’ll feel like starters are built up a little bit.”
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