Mike Vaccaro

Mike Vaccaro

MLB

Brandon McCarthy arrived just in time for Yankees

This is the first thing you notice about Brandon McCarthy, before it ever occurs to you to look at the scoreboard for his velocity, or to glance at the hitter to judge just how flummoxing his sinker is, or to monitor his body English to see how he’s feeling in the middle of a start:

Catch. Nod. Throw.

Catch. Nod. Throw.

Catch. Nod. Throw.

There is no squirming. There is no squinting. There is almost never silent disagreement with the catcher. There is no kicking the rubber, palming the resin bag, fiddling with the baseball, chewing on the mitt.

Catch. Nod. Throw.

Now, the last part of that equation — the throwing part — has been a splendid addition to the Yankees these past few weeks. McCarthy is 2-0 and the Yankees are 3-0 in his starts since he was imported from Phoenix for Vidal Nuno; it was one of those quirks of baseball timing that he happened to arrive in Cleveland just in time to see Masahiro Tanaka’s final game before his elbow started barking.

McCarthy’s job isn’t to replace Tanaka — “I learned a while ago that it isn’t smart to try to control those things that are beyond your control,” he said Thursday — but the results are something to behold. In the same way Tanaka quickly became the singular embodiment of that old ’96 Yankees credo (“We play today, we win today”) so has McCarthy eased into a routine of reliability.

McCarthy fires off a pitch against the Rangers on Thursday.Paul J. Bereswill

Thursday was six innings and one earned run, and it would’ve been more except the Rangers are good at one thing right now, and that’s spoiling pitches and extending at-bats. But those six innings were plenty, and this 4-2 Yankees win was good for a sixth in seven games, and if this post-break streak has been earned on the backs of the depleted Reds and the depressing Rangers … well, 6-1 beats the alternative.

“We have to win a lot of these types of games,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “These are all important games.”

As important is the way they are winning these games, with a repeatable formula that allows the Yankees to win even as it’s becoming more likely that their offense is never going to quite get out of the mud. They’ve waited almost four months now for a host of accomplished offensive players to fulfill the newest cliché — playing to the back of their baseball cards — and it’s becoming evident that might not ever happen.

But there are other ways to win, and one of the most time-tested methodologies is the simplest one: Throw a quality pitcher every day, take your chances there. Maybe it seems downright improbable — if not impossible — the Yankees are doing that with four-fifths of the Opening Day rotation on the disabled list. And maybe it’s really not sustainable, especially once the varsity portion of the schedule arrives.

But for now, the unlikely quintet of McCarthy, Hideki Kuroda, David Phelps, Chase Whitley and Shane Greene have managed to give the Yankees a chance to win every game they play, especially since the team’s bullpen remains a bulwark. Six times in seven games, that’s precisely what’s happened since the All-Star Game. With three games against Toronto (which hasn’t won at Yankee Stadium since 1979) and three more against these Rangerettes in Arlington to come.

“It’s a nice feeling,” said McCarthy, who languished with a terrible Diamondbacks team for months and looks clearly revitalized. “It’s the opposite of what I felt earlier in the year, when I was a burden on a team and holding them up. I wanted more pressure. It’s the fight-or-flight thing.”

And he is a pleasure to watch. He has a plan, and he rarely deviates from it, and in three starts he has emerged as a pleasant surprise for his teammates and probably for MLB’s time police, too, at a time when everyone would dearly like to find a way to do away with the four-hour nine-inning baseball game.

Catch. Nod. Throw.

We play today, we win today.

Who says routine has to be boring?