Yankees need 6th starter this week, and they’re passing on Michael King

NEW YORK — The Yankees’ rainouts on Friday night and Saturday afternoon did more than force a Sunday doubleheader and makeup game on Monday to get in their three-game set with the Texas Rangers.

This also left the Yankees with a grueling stretch of 23 games in 22 days, and because it began with a double-dip, they’ll need an extra starting pitcher at some point this week.

The Yankees opted to use a sixth starter on Thursday night when they begin a two-city roadtrip with the first of four against the Chicago White Sox. Thursday just so happens to be recently-demoted pitcher Clarke Schmidt’s regular day to make his second start with the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre.

The Yankees haven’t yet stated Schmidt would be their guy for Thursday, but it’s easy reading the tealeaves because manager Aaron Boone all but ruled out middle reliever Michael King as a candidate to start in Chicago and stated the plan was to call up a Triple-A pitcher.

“I guess we’d consider it, but we’ll probably call-up an internal starter and do it that way and then keep Michael flexible to where we have him in the role he’s been in, whether that’s an important one-inning role or giving us three innings strategically in place,” Boone said. “So I don’t expect us to do Michael, but the days ahead could always throw a curveball to where you got to figure something out. But I would expect us to call somebody up for that start.”

The Yankees think King’s future could be as a starter, but he’s having a breakout season as a jack-of-all-trades reliever. In eight games, the 26-year-old righty went into Sunday 2-0 with an 0.51 ERA, 25 strikeouts and three walks over 17 2/3 innings.

Schmidt was the logical choice for the start because he’s a natural starter who pitched well for the Yankees as a middle reliever in April. After making their expanded Opening Day roster, the righty was 2-2 with a 1.08 ERA in four relief outings. He was demoted on May 2 when roster sizes dropped from 28 to 26.

By using a sixth starter on Thursday, the Yankees also were able to set up this week’s rotation the way they preferred. They want to give Luis Severino extra rest at times this season, his first full one since Tommy John surgery, and he’s slated to start Tuesday against the Toronto Blue Jays on eight days rest.

“I’m just picking a spot where obviously with Sevy,” Boone said. “I feel like if he got bumped there, it puts us in line with a couple righties against Toronto also. It’s just where we can find spots with Sevy, we’ll try and have those kind of built in ones every now and then.”

Righty Jameson Taillon will start Wednesday night in the finale of a two-game series against the Blue Jays.

Nestor Cortes will start Monday’s makeup game against Texas. In Sunday’s doubleheader, Gerrit Cole was picked to be the Game 1 starter with Jordan Montgomery on the mound for Game. 2.

The Yankees easily will be able to open up a roster spot for Schmidt by returning reliever Ron Marinaccio to Triple-A The rookie was recalled on Sunday to replace outfielder Tim Locastro, who was placed on the 10-day injured list with a strained lat.

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Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com.

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