The result, at least on paper, hinted at some progress.
A return to the version of Marcus Stroman who cruised through all but one of his August starts and made his most recent outing — when he didn’t make it out of the fourth inning — resemble a late-season anomaly.
This time, against a Royals team that he and the rest of the Yankees could face again in the postseason, Stroman felt he controlled with his sinker.
He allowed just three runs and certainly didn’t hurt his case for manager Aaron Boone to include him in their collection of postseason starters.
But with Kansas City starter Seth Lugo silencing the Yankees lineup, Stroman’s seven-hit, three-run outing that lasted 5 ¹/₃ innings featured more damage than the Yankees could overcome during their 5-0 loss Tuesday in The Bronx.
“Made a couple mistakes in situations with runners out there where they were able to pad the lead,” Boone said, “but he gave us, got into the sixth inning with three runs. It was just with the way Lugo was going, seemed like a bigger lead.”
If Stroman ends up cracking the Yankees postseason rotation, his final four August starts will serve as a primary reason why.
He collected a 2.53 ERA during those outings, lowering his number for the year from 4.10 to 3.81 by the end of the month.
But the Yankees are still facing a crunch behind ace Gerrit Cole ahead of the postseason, with Carlos Rodon, Luis Gil, Clarke Schmidt, Nestor Cortes and Stroman all attempting to secure one of the remaining spots.
Someone, maybe even Stroman, will end up in the bullpen once October arrives.
That’ll add increased importance to each of Stroman’s final starts, and on Tuesday, he was also forced to match Lugo’s seven shutout innings to whatever degree possible.
Stroman didn’t surrender an extra-base hit, but the Royals’ seven singles added up — including in the third inning, when catcher Salvador Perez punched a slurve down the left-field line and into the corner to score Bobby Witt Jr. from first base for their second run of the inning.
“You feel like he can get to every pitch,” Stroman said of Perez, who he called “one of the best catchers of all time… You almost feel like you’re better off just throwing the ball right down the middle sometimes. You do your best job to throw it off the plate and execute, and he still finds a way to get a hit.”
Stroman allowed a baserunner in all six of his frames, but he thought his mechanics returned to where they were prior to his disaster against the Rangers.
Boone said pregame that everything revolves around command with Stroman.
He didn’t need to necessarily tweak anything before Tuesday, but rather just find a consistency comparable to the one that allowed him to rip through those four August starts with just six runs allowed.
“I’m always just trying to keep my team at striking range,” Stroman said. “I know how dangerous we can be at any point, so I’m always just trying to keep it to two, three runs or less.”
He avoided surpassing that threshold against the Royals.
Twenty of his 28 starts have now ended with three or fewer runs allowed.
But when matched up against Lugo, something that could happen again next month, it still wasn’t enough.
