DETROIT — Five games into a season doesn’t provide much data or proof of how the remainder of the year is going to play out.
However, an early trend is developing with Yankee hitters: They are punishing starters who aren’t top of the rotation arms and getting handcuffed by those who are.
Saturday at a frigid Comerica Park, where it snowed in the morning, the Yankees spanked Tigers starter Mike Pelfrey on the way to an 8-4 victory that was witnessed by 32,419 freezing customers who shivered through a first pitch temperature of 31 degrees that only climbed to freezing by the eighth inning. It was the coldest temperature in the ballpark’s history.
At 3-2 the Yankees have beaten the Astros’ Collin McHugh, Mike Fiers and Pelfrey. They have lost to Dallas Keuchel, last year’s AL Cy Young winner, and Jordan Zimmermann, a right-hander the Tigers thought enough of as a free agent to give a five-year, $110 million deal. To be fair, McHugh won 19 games a year ago, but he was awful against the Yankees who rocked him for six runs (five earned) in one-third of an inning in the second game of the season.
In his first start, CC Sabathia benefitted from the pounding the Yankees put on Pelfrey, the former Met who gave up six runs and eight hits in 3 ²/₃ innings.
Sabathia pitched into the seventh, which is the longest stint this season by a Yankees starter. In six innings he gave up two runs and four hits.
Alex Rodriguez and Carlos Beltran homered for the Yankees, who also got a three-run triple from Jacoby Ellsbury and two RBIs by Didi Gregorius. Dellin Betances fanned three of the four hitters he faced in the eighth and Andrew Miller worked a scoreless ninth.
“You look at our eighth and ninth hitters and what they have been doing this year it’s been phenomenal,’’ said Rodriguez, who homered in the first inning.
Gregorius, the eighth hitter, went 1-for-4 with two RBIs and Ronald Torreyes, who started at third for Chase Headley, went 3-for-4 and scored a run.
Against Keuchel and Zimmermann the Yankees are 0-2 and the pair’s combined ERA is 1.29. They allowed five hits in 14 innings. McHugh, Fiers and Pelfrey are 0-3 with an obese 16.00 ERA and gave up 20 hits in nine frames.
If the expected rain holds to play Sunday night, the Yankees get Justin Verlander — who, though not what he used to be, certainly is better than the three hurlers they have bullied. The Yankees will counter with Masahiro Tanaka, their Opening Day starter.
After the Tigers scored twice in the fourth inning when Sabathia loaded the bases with three walks and cut the Yankees’ lead to 6-2, Beltran slugged a two-run homer off Buck Farmer in the fifth to restore the advantage to 8-2.
When the Yankees added Starlin Castro (2-for-4) they talked about his right-handed bat adding balance to a lineup that was too left-handed at times a year ago. Five games in, manager Joe Girardi has seen signs of that balance.
“I have so far. I think you are getting production up and down the lineup,’’ Girardi said after his club collected 14 hits and went 5-for-13 with runners in scoring position. “Didi had a couple of RBIs and you get a big triple out of Jake with the bases loaded. It seems to be a couple of different people every day and that makes your lineup really deep and hard to navigate through.’’
Especially for pitchers who aren’t considered elite.
