Yankees 6, Phillies 0: Luis Severino shuts down Philadelphia, seals series victory

It says a lot about the quality of an ace that, on a night where the offense takes control from the very start, the story of the game is how the pitcher performed. That’s exactly what happened tonight in Philadelphia, as Luis Severino led the Yankees to a 6-0 win over the Phillies, guaranteeing them another series win.

Severino was just outstanding. I know we’ve said that a lot so far in 2018 but man, was he on it tonight. The Phillies never really had a chance against the Yankee starter, who started 0-1 against the first TWENTY batters he faced. Rhys Hoskins was the first of the Phillies to see a 1-0 count, in his third at-bat, in the sixth inning. When a pitcher controls the count like that, it’s almost impossible to get anything going offensively. For the record, that at-bat to Hoskins ended with a popout in foul territory, just about the best non-strikeout result a pitcher can get.

And of course, once Sevy established the count, he was more than capable of putting away hitters. Look how he treats Odubal Herrera and Hoskins on consecutive at-bats:

Jake Arrieta, usually a pretty good hitter as far as pitchers go, got just a single at-bat against Severino. All that was good for was just one of Luis’ nine strikeouts. Oh, and the man walked zero batters. He was so dominant tonight it’s almost comical.

Severino nearly overshadowed the offense, too, even though the game started with a literal bang courtesy of leadoff hitter Aaron Hicks:

That was just the beginning. The Yankees were all over starter Jake Arrieta, hammering him for all five innings of his start. They had eight batted balls with exit velos over 100mph against Arrieta, with six dropping in for hits.

Gleyber Torres helped break the game open in the third, after an error loaded the bases full of Yankees. Pulling a ball to left field for a double, Torres cashed in two runs and was immediately followed by an RBI single from Greg Bird.

Hicks added a sacrifice fly in the fourth and Didi Gregorius knocked a ball into the right field seats for his 15^th home run of the season an inning later. If you like home runs, this game had something for you, and if you like more conventional ways of scoring, you were probably happy too.

The Yankees so thoroughly dominated the Phillies that they recorded the same number of runs as Philadelphia had hits. With another series win under the team’s belt, it takes a lot of the pressure off tomorrow’s starter Luis Cessa. He doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in anyone, but New York got the result they wanted from the series already, and with Sevy’s seven strong innings, the high-leverage guys in the bullpen will be well-rested if they’re needed tomorrow.

You can see the series finale tomorrow night at 7:05pm EDT, on YES and WFAN.