Yanks' handful of aces making history under pressure

This story was excerpted from Bryan Hoch’s Yankees Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

ANAHEIM -- The measure of distance from a pitcher to a batter has been 60 feet and six inches since 1893, a year in which President Grover Cleveland had just 44 United States to consider, an epic Chicago World’s Fair thrilled over 27 million visitors and the Brooklyn Bridge celebrated its 10th birthday.

So, yeah, it's been a while.

Over that time period, no team has achieved what this Yankees rotation has, a streak that continued with Luis Gil's stellar outing against the Angels in New York’s 2-1 win on Wednesday night. Bombers hurlers have tallied 16 consecutive starts of at least five innings while permitting two or fewer runs.

“I think we’ve done a good job internally to make this like a little competition amongst ourselves,” said left-hander Nestor Cortes. “I feel like everybody that goes out there the night before, you want to trump that. You want to pitch better and have a better line.”

That would put some pressure on Carlos Rodón, who will take the ball in Thursday’s series finale against the Angels, considering Gil turned in a dominant eight-inning effort against the Halos.

Since May 12, Yankees starters have posted a 12-2 record with a sterling 1.00 ERA (11 earned runs in 99 innings) -- doing it all without Gerrit Cole throwing a single pitch so far this season.

“Amazing,” manager Aaron Boone said. “They’ve set the tone for us all year long, and have continued through this stretch. It’s been a special, special run by those guys.”

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the previous mark of 14 consecutive starts spanning five or more innings with two or fewer runs was shared by three clubs: the 1907 Phillies, the 1968 Pirates and the 2022 Mets.

“I think all our starters have been incredible,” said right-hander Marcus Stroman. “Just this gracious flow of energy that each guy hands off to the next guy. We’re all expecting each other to be great, and we’re all doing this without having the best pitcher in baseball. It’s been a fun run.

“ … We know what we’re capable of. We know we’re all just a bunch of starters who can be elite in this game. The flow of information between coaches and staff, everything is so dialed in. I think we all feel really confident when we go out there.”

The Yankees are also the only team in the Majors this season to have five pitchers who have made at least 10 starts with a 3.30 ERA or below: Gil (1.99), Clarke Schmidt (2.52), Stroman (2.76), Rodón (2.95) and Cortes (3.30). Only one other team has at least three such pitchers; the Phillies, who have four.

“I guess that’s kind of like a motivating part about us,” Cortes said. “We all want to go into the sixth or seventh innings. We know how much pride [we have in] our starting staff, and how good that is for our bullpen down the line. When we can go deep into games and keep them to a minimum, it’s impressive for us.”