From HoraceClarke66: “Where have you gone, Gillie Patterson?”

From HoraceClarke66...

It was a sad thing to watch Luis Severino limp off the field the other day. But the idea of Sevvy’s triumphant return to the Bronx this summer was always an illusion.

It has been nearly three years since Severino was abruptly pulled from the shutout he was pitching against the Boston Red Sox.  The Yanks would win that game, 11-1—a glorious, nationally televised stomping of the BoSox at the Stadium, one that brought them all the way back from 7 ½  games behind to a tie for first.

Sevvy, with a 13-2 record and a 1.98 ERA, looked like the best pitcher in baseball. The Yanks were on a 45-18 tear, and looked young and tough and just about invincible, and surely goodness and mercy would follow them all the days of their lives.

Well, it didn’t work out that way—for anyone. Something had given out in Luis’ arm, much as the Yanks refused to admit it for months. He struggled through the rest of the season, struggled to come back in the playoffs a year later, struggled through surgeries and rehabs. And now this.

It’s been three years now, and even with all the great new strides in sports medicine, it’s doubtful we’ll ever see Sevvy on a mound for the Yankees again—at least not at anything approaching his old form.

We have all seen the arms of summer in their ruin.

I remember Gil Patterson, a terrific young prospect in the 1970s. Patterson had a brain as well as an arm, racing from Low-A ball to Triple-A, Oneonta to Syracuse, in just two seasons. He made the Yanks’ starting rotation in the spring of 1977—but after just 6 starts, 1 win, and 1 save, he was done.

There are differing accounts of what happened. Some say Billy Martin left him out too long on a cold April night. Some say the Yanks pitched him for too many innings as a young man—he threw a total of 283, in  1975-76—and then insisted he go play winter ball, too.

Whatever. Patterson felt something pop in his arm, and that was all she wrote, even though he struggled mightily to come back for years, even switching from being a righty to a southpaw—and all while raising a kid with Tourette’s syndrome. Nothing worked—and Patterson finally started a second career as a talented pitching instructor.

That’s often how it goes. 

Remember when, after the 1985 season, the Yanks traded for Britt Burns, a 26-year-old lefty who had already won 70 games for the ChiSox? He had a degenerative hip condition, but the Yanks took a chance anyway. We heard for years how Burns was making another comeback—but he never pitched a game in pinstripes. 

There was Christian Parker, who had a surprise spring in 2001—a surprise so good that he made the rotation. But Parker had already felt that something pop in his arm. He tried to deny it to himself, tried to pitch anyway—and his one-and-only major-league start lasted three innings. 

There were so many who went before their time—if there is such a thing when it comes to pitchers—and never could quite make it back, no matter how hard they tried. All the Jim Boutons and the Steve Klines, and don’t get me started on Brien Taylor, whose problems started with his head before moving to his arm. 

I hope Sevvy somehow beats the odds. But I doubt that he will. And counting on him to do so is as foolish as every other calculation that has gone into building these 2021 Yankees.