Yankees History: Some other historic pitching runs

Last week was pretty fun for the Yankees in general, especially on the pitching front. On Thursday night, Jameson Taillon took a perfect game through seven innings. The very next night, Gerrit Cole took one through 6.2 inning, both games ending in wins. The day after Cole, Luis Severino threw seven inning of one-hit ball, and in the two games prior to Taillon, Jordan Motgomery and Nestor Cortes allowed just two runs and nine hits between the two of them. It was a week where every member of the Yankees’ rotation contributed a great outing. Taillon and Cole’s perfect game bids in particular were the first time teammates had done that on back to back days in a long time.

Even very good rotations won’t have stretches where every member puts in that good of an effort in five consecutive days like these five did. Let’s dig into the history books and look at some other times Yankee pitchers have had a little run like that on consecutive days.

The record for most consecutive shutouts by the Yankees is four, which they set from May 11-16, 1932. In games against the Browns, White Sox, and Cleveland, Johnny Allen, George Pipgras, Red Ruffing, and Lefty Gomez threw four-straight complete games, not allowing a run in any of them. The “worst” of those games belonged to Allen and Gomez, who both allowed five hits and a walk. Add in the end of the game prior, the Yankees threw 40 consecutive scoreless innings in that stretch, which was finally broken when Cleveland scored a run in the first inning on May 17th.

Of course, you don’t have to throw a shutout to have a good game. Taillon ended up allowing a run after his perfect game was broken up. If we look up consecutive games where Yankees’ pitchers allowed one or fewer runs, the streak jumps to six, a stretch from September 24-30 in 1978.

Late in the season, with the Yankees locked in a battle with the Red Sox, their pitchers stepped up, allowing four total run in six games, all of which ended in wins. In his Cy Young season, Ron Guidry was the star of that stretch, throwing two complete games, both coming on just a couple days’ rest. The Yankees ended up needed every last one of those wins, as they would end the year tied with the Red Sox (you may remember what happened after that.)

In terms of the least hits allowed, the Taillon-Cole-Severino three-game sequences is actually probably the most impressive in franchise history. That is the only time in franchise history in which Yankee pitching has given up three or fewer hits in three-straight games. There’s never been a stretch in which they’ve throw one or no-hitters in consecutive games, and on a couple of occasions, they’ve thrown two-hitters in two-straight games.

From May 21-25, 1947, there was a stretch where Yankee pitchers allowed 12 hits total across four games, highlighted by Spud Chander’s two-hit, three-walk complete game on May 24th.

If we’re talking about runs that include a no-hitter/perfect game, then the most recent one in Yankee history actually kicked off a nice little set of games. Last year on May 19th, Corey Kluber threw a no-hitter against the Rangers. In the three games after that, Yankee pitching allowed just one run in total.

There are undoubtedly other good ones that I missed during research, so feel free to share some of your favorites.

All data research courtesy of Baseball Reference