Yankees.com: Stingy Schmidt shoves yet again as Yanks clinch series in KC

From Jackson Stone:

For a rotation that’s already lost three starters due to injury, Clarke Schmidt is quickly becoming one of the Yankees’ most reliable pitchers.

The 29-year-old continued his strong start to the 2025 season with six scoreless frames against the Royals in the Yankees’ 6-3 series-clinching victory on Wednesday at Kauffman Stadium.

Schmidt struck out seven — one shy of his career high — and allowed just two hits to toss his second six-inning scoreless gem in his past three starts. Schmidt has gotten through the sixth inning five times in his 10 starts this season — matching the same number he reached in 32 outings in 2023 (his most recent full season).

The right-hander has allowed three runs or fewer in nine of his 10 starts this season and dropped his ERA to a season-best 3.60 mark after his dominant start in Kansas City. In fact, the only runs Schmidt has allowed in his past three starts came in the first inning in Cleveland — outside of that, Schmidt has put up a zero in every other frame.

For a Yankees team that has already lost Gerrit Cole for the season and is still a few weeks away at best before both Marcus Stroman and Luis Gil return to the big league club, Schmidt’s ability to not only provide depth — but limit the damage – has been crucial for a Yankees (41-25) club that entered the day 13th in MLB in starter’s ERA despite the brilliance of Max Fried (1.84) and Carlos Rodón (2.87), who both rank inside the top 20 in baseball in ERA.

That’s a fucking crazy ass stat about them being 13th in the Majors in ERA despite Fried, Rodon, and Schmidt all putting up strong ERAs.

The Yankee offense has been tearing dudes UP recently. This is the third straight hot shit pitcher that they’ve put a beating on (Crochet, Cameron, and now Bubic). The problem, of course, is that THEIR starters were getting lit up against Boston, so the hurting the Yankee offense put on Garret Crochet turned out to be all for naught.

An interesting thing about Marcus Stroman’s possible return is that I guess it would be nice to have a long man again who could step in when a guy doesn’t have it. The Yankees had no real options when Yarbrough didn’t have it the other game. He pretty much HAD to stay in and suck more. But I’d just as soon as have STROMAN be that long man. But hey, maybe Stroman’s terrible pitching was due to an injury.

Anyhow, great win, even if the ninth inning was a bit of a farce. Also, hopefully Jazz Chisholm’s groin tightness wasn’t anything major. Perhaps he might want to try to heal at a 100% rate instead of at 70%.

The featured image is Schmidt celebrating a great catch by Trent Grisham.