The Yankees’ approach to their rotation — “Pleased To Meet Ya, Now Go Start” — continued Saturday with veteran Chris Capuano stepping into the spot held by so many before him this season.
As has been the case recently, the newly acquired Capuano gave the Yankees as much, if not more, than they could have expected.
“I had a little nerves going in the beginning,” Capuano said. “I had four walks, but I made some good pitches when I had to and was just thrilled to be out there.”
The 11th different pitcher to start a game for the Yankees this season — as opposed to nine from all last season — Capuano did not figure in the decision of the Yankees’ 6-4 loss to the Blue Jays, but he worked six innings, allowing five hits and two earned runs while striking out four.
In his first Yankees start, Capuano — like Brandon McCarthy, Shane Greene and for the most part, Chase Whitley — plugged a hole creating by the staggering rash of rotation injuries. He struggled a bit with fastball command, but his offspeed pitches were most effective.
“He did a really good job,” manager Joe Girardi said. “He gave us six good innings. I said we’d use him around 100 pitches, and that’s what he gave us [94] and did a nice job.”
Girardi supplied Capuano with a nice confidence jolt by running him back for the sixth inning after he had surrendered two fifth-inning runs.
Capuano said the start, his first since Sept. 6 last season as a Dodger, capped “a crazy couple of days.” The 35-year-old left-hander began the season with Boston, made 28 relief appearances and was cut on July 1. He caught on with Colorado and made four minor league starts.
He had a contract out with the Rockies which he exercised this week. They had 48 hours to bring him up or trade him. So the Yankees acquired him for cash Thursday, signed him Friday and started him Saturday.
“A month ago, I was in the bullpen in Boston, which was a role I accepted,” said Capuano, who was a Met in 2011 and an All-Star with the Brewers in 2006. “But after I left Boston, my goal was to get back to the big leagues starting.”
Goal achieved. So Capuano pitched Saturday with his wife in attendance, along with his parents who drove down from his native Massachusetts. And it doesn’t hurt that he went from Boston, last in the AL East, to Colorado, last in the NL West, to the Yankees, who are making a push for the playoffs. According to Elias Sports Bureau, Capuano became the first pitcher since Ray Scarborough in 1952 to start for the Yankees after playing in the same season for Boston.
“To be on a team like the Yankees who are in the hunt to boot,” Capuano said, “that’s more than I could have hoped for.”