This sure isn’t the start to the season the Yankees envisioned for Clarke Schmidt.
Though he entered the season as the nominal #2 starter thanks to a bevy of injuries, his results so far have been more befitting of a Triple-A depth man. He’s started four games , but he’s only made it through 14.1 innings pitched, and given up 14 earned runs to go along with it — the lowest inning total and second-to-worst ERA (8.79) of the 60 pitchers to have reached the four-start threshold.
There are enough things going wrong that it’s impossible to pinpoint a single root cause or specific problem (at least from this observer’s chair), but even at this early juncture, numbers and Statcast data already show some subtle changes from 2022 that could be contributing to his struggles.