The New York Yankees are known for their great offense. However, they won 27 titles not solely because of their big hitters. Their pitchers also played a key role in making the Yankees one of the best sports teams in the world. Don Larsen, David Wells, and David Cone have won titles for them with their perfect games. Who can forget the one-handed Jim Abbot, who got a no-hitter in 1993? Here are the 10 best Yankees pitchers in their history chosen by Pinstripes Nation.
Whitey Ford
The cool pitcher fondly called “Chairman of the Board” played for the Yankees for 15 seasons – in 1950 (called into military service for the Korean war) and then from 1950 to 1967. Whitey Ford helped the Yankees win 11 pennants while he was in New York. Ford’s career record of 236-106 gives him a.690 winning percentage, which is the highest of any pitcher inducted into Cooperstown after 1900.
Ford made an immediate impression as a 21-year-old southpaw rookie by winning his first nine games. He helped the Yankees sweep the Philadelphia Phillies in that year’s World Series by pitching nine innings with just two earned runs. In 1961, when Ford set a career record by pitching 283 innings, he didn’t let anyone steal a base.
During his career, Ford won at least 15 games ten times and lost 10 or more games only twice. He lost a career-high 13 games at age 36 while pitching for a broken-down Yankees team. His last two seasons, 1966 and 1967, were the only ones he lost. His aches and pains got worse, but his earned run average stayed great at 2.15, bringing his career mark to 2.74, which is the lowest for a major league starting pitcher who played only after the dead-ball era.
Red Ruffing
In his 15 seasons with the Yankees between 1930 and 1946, Red Ruffing was an enigma. When he was a teen, he lost four toes in a coal-mining accident. Despite that, he started as a good-hitting outfielder but soon became a pitcher. However, his Red Sox career of six years ended in disappointment, and Ruffing moved to New York after starting the 1930 season in Boston.
In New York, Ruffing finished the 1930 season with a 15–5 record for the Yankees. From then on, he only had one losing season while pitching for the Yankees. During the 1930s, he got better and better, and by the end of the decade, he was as reliable as the Yankees. He won at least 20 games every season. His career ERA of 3.80 is the second-highest of any pitcher in the Hall of Fame, behind only Jack Morris.
Ruffing worked hard to earn his World Series pay. He went 7-2 in 10 starts and had an earned run average of 2.63. In Game 1 of the 1942 World Series against St. Louis, he took a no-hitter into the eighth inning.
Mariano Rivera
Between 1995 and 2013, the Panama-born pitcher had a highly successful career with the Yankees. Mariano Rivera was the best closer of all time. He did this mostly with just one pitch, the cut fastball.
The pitcher thrived in the company of his illustrious teammates, including Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, and Andy Pettitte. Rivera went from being a spot starter in 1995 to a set-up man in 1996 to a full-time closer in 1997. He was amazingly consistent at a high level and had an ERA over 3.00 only once.
The pitcher led the AL in saves three times, including the 2004 season when he made a career-high 53. Rivera also never gave up an earned run in his nine All-Star Game appearances and got four saves. When Rivera got his 602nd save in 2011, he passed Trevor Hoffman as the all-time leader. He also became the first pitcher to make 1,000 appearances for one team.
Rivera got into the Hall of Fame with 100% of the vote, a first for the Hall of Fame. Rivera had an amazing 0.70 ERA and 0.76 WHIP in 94 playoff games. He was at the top of his game in 1999, when he went 12.1 postseason innings without giving up a run. This was part of a 43-inning streak that started in the middle of the regular season, and he was named MVP of the World Series.
Left Gomez
Lefty Gomez (1930-42) was once the Yankees King of the Quotes, always making reporters and fans laugh with his crazy wit. Gomez played his full season with the Yankees in 1931 and recorded 21-9 with an ERA of 2.67. He was the Yankee ace for most of the 1930s. Three more times, he went on to win 20 games. In 1934 and 1937, he won the “triple crown of pitching” in the American League by leading the league in wins, earned run average (ERA) (both times with a 2.33 mark), and strikeouts.
In 1932, he helped end the reign of the three-time defending AL champion Philadelphia A’s by winning seven of eight decisions against them. This helped bring the Yankees, who had been in a long slump for them, back to the top of the charts. A year later, he started the first All-Star Game and won it. In the postseason, Gomez was 6-0 and had an ERA of 2.86 in seven World Series starts.
Ron Guidry
Left-handed Ron Guidry played for the Yankees from 1975 to 1988. In the 1977 season, he had a 16-7 record and a 2.82 earned run average (ERA). Next year, he became the star of the season with a sharp fastball and one of the best sliders of the time. He won his first 13 decisions and finished the year 25-3, which is the best record for a 20-game winner. His last win of the year came in the legendary Yankees’ 5-4 win over the Red Sox in the tie-breaking playoff to decide the AL East. Guidry also had a sparkling 1.74 earned run average, and nine shutouts, which was the most for a left-handed pitcher.
Guidry made a Yankees team record of 18 strikeouts on June 17 against California. He won the Cy Young Award. In three postseason starts for the Yankees, he went 2-0 and helped them win the World Series.
From 1977 to 1985, when he was at the top of his game, he went 154-67 and won 20 games twice more, including a league-high 22 wins against only six losses in 1985. The pitcher won five Gold Gloves on defense, and he won them all in a row from 1982 to 1986.
Spud Chandler
In his 11 years in New York, Spud Chandler had a 109-43 record and never had a losing season. He was the Yankees’ most efficient pitcher between 1937 and 1947 with a 717 winning percentage. His 16-5 record in 1942 got him into the All-Star Game, where he pitched four scoreless innings and got the credit for the Yankees AL’s win.
In 1943, Chandler won the AL with a 20-4 record, including five shutouts, and an earned run average of 1.64, which was the lowest in the league since the end of the dead-ball era. In the World Series, he shut down the opposing Cardinals by winning two complete games and letting only one run score. Chandler was the first and, so far, only Yankees pitcher to ever win the MVP award for his work that year.
Herb Pennock
Herb Pennock arrived in New York in 1923 and continued till the 1933 season. Before that, he had won the pennant for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1913 and a few no-hitters. Once in New York, he won a lot of games for the Yankees. In 11 years, he won 162 games and lost only 90. In 1923, his first year with New York, he went 19–6 and had the best winning percentage in the AL at.760. The next year, he won 21 games, and the year after that, he won 23.
Pennock started five games for New York in four different World Series. He finished four of them and won all of them. In Game Three of the 1927 Fall Classic, he was so good that the first 22 Pittsburgh Pirates he faced went out of the game.
Later, he was the general manager for the Phillies, where he helped build the “Whiz Kids” team.
Waite Hoyt
After leaving the Red Six, Waite Hoyt joined the Yankees in 1921 and continued playing for them through 1930. He quickly rose in their ranks. In the 1921 World Series, when the Yankees lost to the New York Giants in eight games, Hoyt stood out by going 27 innings without giving up an earned run. Ford holds the record for the most consecutive scoreless innings in World Series, where Hoyt threw 34 innings without giving up an earned run.
In 1927 and 1928, Hoyt had 22-7 and 23-7. During the 1928 season, he came in as a reliever in 11 games and saved eight games, which was the most in the AL.
Mel Stottlemyre
He began his career with the Yankees in 1964 when the team was on a slide. Mel Stottlemyre in his next 10 years tried to stem the slump. He made 13 appearances for the AL champions and had a 9-2 record and a 2.06 earned run average (ERA). He got two starts in that year’s seven-game World Series and beat Cardinal ace Bob Gibson in Game Two. It was the last time he ever played in the postseason.
In 1965, Stottlemyre won 20 games for the first of three times and also became the first pitcher in 55 years to hit a home run inside Yankee Stadium. Over the next nine years, he was the team’s big-time workhorse, averaging 272 innings.
Stottlemyre got a bunch of World Series rings when he went back to the Yankees in 1996 and worked as their pitching coach for ten years mentoring great pitchers, such as Rivera, Pettitte, and others in the Bronx.
Ed Lopat
After Ford, Ed Lopat became the player in the New York rotation who had the most consistent success during the Stengel era. He played for the Yankees between 1948 and 1953.
Lopat was known as the Junkman because he threw all kinds of pitches except the fastball. In his seven full seasons for the Yankees, he had a great record of 109-51, won the ERA title in 1953 with a 2.42 mark, and went 16-4. But he won 20 games for the only time in his career in 1951 when he finished with a record of 21-9.
Lopat pitched very well when the stakes were high. In seven starts for the Yankees in the World Series, he was 4-1 with a 2.60 ERA and three complete games. And he was so annoying to the Cleveland Indians, who were the Yankees’ biggest rivals at the time and for whom Lopat had a 30–6 career record, that the Yankees’ owner, Bill Veeck, held “Beat Eddie Lopat Night” in Cleveland in 1951.
Who are the other pitchers you think should be in on our list?
