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TAMPA — Clarke Schmidt is healthy and throwing well. Now he just has to keep it that way. The oft-injured right-hander averaged 96 mph on his four-seam fastball in Tuesday’s 14-2 win over the Phillies at Steinbrenner Field, a 3 mph increase over his career average.
Though he allowed two runs over three innings, both Schmidt and Aaron Boone were encouraged by the performance.
“That was one of the better times I’ve seen him,’’ Boone said.
He was particularly impressed by Schmidt’s performance in the first inning, when he opened the game by striking out Kyle Schwarber and Jean Segura before getting Didi Gregorius to ground to first.
“That first inning was as good as you can be,’’ Boone said. “Those were good hitters and they were clearly uncomfortable. With his repertoire, he can even overmatch them a little bit.”
He was less efficient in the second, which is the issue for Schmidt, according to Boone.
“You see glimpses in there where you say, ‘Man, this is gonna be a great starter,’ ” Boone said. “It’s finding that consistency. Today, I thought, was a good step in the right direction for him.”
Schmidt said he’s working on refining his fastball command, since he throws a two-seam and a four-seam fastball. He’s working on his delivery and arm slot.
Aaron Hicks started in left, with Aaron Judge in center and Giancarlo Stanton in right, as the Yankees look to be able to have more flexibility in their outfield alignments this season.
“It’s one of those things if [Joey] Gallo gets a day off or a DH day and we’re at Yankee Stadium, we don’t want to move Aaron [Judge] over to left, we’d prefer to have another center fielder in our left field,” Boone said, speaking of Hicks. “That’s an alignment you can see. I wanted to make sure I did that at least once down here.”
Boone added Hicks “feels pretty comfortable out there.”
And after avoiding using Gallo in center last season following his trade from Texas, Boone said Gallo will start there on Friday, when the Yankees visit the Tigers in Lakeland, Fla.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine with his athletic ability,’’ Boone said.
But the manager also added he didn’t want to move his outfielders around too much or too often.
“What we did last year went well,’’ Boone said of shifting Judge from right to center on occasion when Stanton was in the outfield. “I don’t want to add too much to everyone’s plate.”
Shelby Miller is scheduled to throw live batting practice Wednesday for the first time since signing a minor league deal. The right-hander has been largely ineffective since 2015, but is hoping the addition of a slider last year that he’s hoping to keep throwing will get him back into good form.
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