Yankees Pitching Mauls Mariners

By Sal Maiorana

April 2, 2026

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Sal Maiorana shares his thoughts on the Yankees. Here is an edited version of Sal's latest article.

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Sweeping the offensively-challenged San Francisco Giants was obviously a great way to start the season, but lets face it - they didn’t exactly put up much of a fight against the Yankees.

Taking two out of three from the Seattle Mariners, a team most consider one of the top contenders for the 2026 AL pennant? That was way more impressive.

The Yankees finished off quite a season-opening road trip on the West Coast, winning five of the six games to jump into the early lead in the AL East as they sit one game ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays who clearly look as if they’re going to be a problem once again.

But here’s the thing: I’m sure the Blue Jays are saying the same thing about the Yankees who just put forth six nearly flawless pitching performances, their six runs allowed the fewest ever by an AL team in the first six games of a season.

The dominance was otherworldly and as a staff they have three shutouts, a 1.01 ERA, a WHIP of 0.84 and a batting average against of .174, all of which lead MLB. They’re also the only staff that has not allowed a home run.

Leading the way are Max Fried and Cam Schlittler who won their first two starts without giving up a run - 25 combined scoreless innings with 25 strikeouts while yielding just eight hits and two walks. Imagine the audacity of Will Warren and Ryan Weathers to have allowed one run each in their lone starts!  

And the bullpen - which I’m not totally convinced is great, but I’m starting to feel a little better about - was nearly as superb as the rotation. It went 14.2 scoreless innings across the first three-plus games before Paul Blackburn faltered Monday night to lose the only game so far. Even after a blip on Wednesday from Camilo Doval and David Bednar, it’s cumulative ERA is fifth-best in MLB at 1.83 over 19.2 innings.

“What a week of pitching,” Aaron Boone said. “Credit to those guys for, along with Austin (Wells) and J.C. (Escarra) and the pitching group, coming up with a really good game plan and those starting pitchers going out there and executing at a really high level. The defense was excellent on the trip overall. Some timely hitting, a couple big homers along the way. Just really good baseball and a good way to open the season and head back home into an off day and hopefully start off a nice homestand.”


Obviously we can’t expect the Yankees to pitch like this every day and night; that would be historic. But if they can stay healthy, or at least reasonably healthy, and then add to the mix in the coming months with the returns of Carlos Rodon, Gerrit Cole and Clarke Schmidt, this pitching staff has a chance to be one of the best the Yankees have ever had.

You know I’m not prone to positive hyperbole, and it’s way too early to start dreaming about what might be, but a rotation of Fried, Schlittler, Cole, Rodon and then Warren, Weathers or Schmidt in the No. 5 spot is absurdly good. Perhaps I say this with a little recency bias, but when have the Yankees ever had talent and depth like this in their rotation? And since you can’t have a seven-man rotation, pushing a couple of those guys into the bullpen to fortify that group would be quite a scenario.

OK, that was a fun paragraph to write, so now is the time to remind everyone that the chances of all these guys being healthy at the same time is next to impossible. There will be injuries, there will be slumps, and there’s also a chance that the three starters currently on the injured list - Cole, Rodon and Schmidt - won’t be sharp when they return and will need time to find their groove. 

Same for the bullpen - there will be injuries and there will be slumps because while the first week was great, there are still some question marks out there when it comes to consistency including the three relievers who figure to be getting the bulk of the high leverage innings - Fernando Cruz, Doval and Bednar.

For one week, it has all looked glorious, so let’s ride with that as the Yankees head into their home opener in the Bronx Friday afternoon.

“I think the staff’s dominant and the bullpen’s been great as well,” said Schlittler. “The team as a whole, just feeding off each other and taking it each game, each start and keep rolling with it.”