The top five starting pitchers for that Yankees team accumulated 79 wins. Will we ever see that again from a starting rotation? Of course they had the great Mariano Rivera on the back end to save their victories.
The wins broke down this way for the Top 5: Andy Pettitte (16), David Wells (18), David Cone (20), Hideki Irabu (13), and Orlando Hernandez (12).
“I was talking to Gerrit Cole a week ago, I gave him a copy of the book,’’ Curry told me. “I made that remark to him about 79 wins and he said, ‘Check out my 2018 and 2019 Astros.’’’
In 2018 Justin Verlander (16), Dallas Keuchel (12), Gerrit Cole (15), Charlie Morton (15), and Lance McCullers Jr. (10) combined for 68 wins and in 2018 the Astros’ five top starters Verlander (21), Cole (20), Wade Miley (14), Brad Peacock (7), and Zack Greinke (8) combined for 70 wins.
Neither of those Astros teams won a World Series.
Close – but not equal to the ’98 Yankees; and the courage and pitching knowledge of those Yankee starters was amazing.
“The depth of the Yankee starters and even Irabu, who gets forgotten about and unfortunately is no longer with us, he won in double digits,’’ Curry noted. “He was the pitcher of the month in May, so they threw four aces at you and a guy in Irabu who was a competent starter that year.’’
“A few people have asked: How would the ’98 team compete today? I said they’d be just as good, if not better,’’ Curry said with passion in his voice.
The strength of personality was strong, too, in ’98 with the Yankees.
“You start off with Cone and what he meant in any clubhouse,’’ Curry began. “I had good relationships with (Paul) O’Neill and Tino (Martinez) and (Chuck) Knoblauch and I wrote a book with Jeter a couple of years later.
“We were fortunate that El Duque was dropped in our laps, and what a story he was,’’ Curry said about one of my favorite pitchers of all time. “Wells was a wild card but you still had to listen to what he had to say. I also enjoyed talking baseball with (reliever) Jeff Nelson – and then there is Posada and (Joe) Girardi. I felt like Girardi gave you the technical side of catching whereas Posada gave you the emotional side of it. Up and down that clubhouse I think there was a lot to be brought out of there.’’