A lot of things have never happened before, until they do. It's all probabilistic. It's possible to win like that, but baseball has changed quite a bit even since the Royals won and it's not something to necessarily count on. Playoff baseball happens over such a small sample size that a lot of the occurrence is luck anyway, and one of the best ways to mitigate that luck is with a good rotation. It's possible to win without one, but you'd prefer to have one more than those other two components.
Look, I'm a firm believer that QBs win Super Bowls, and starting pitching wins World Series. Regardless of how much the games change, those positions will always be the most critical to win it all to me.
If Paxton can pitch like last night, we get back Severino, and German continues to pitch the way he has, the Yankees' rotation in the playoffs could be a lot better. If they can get the 4 or 5 good innings out of Tanaka, even better. If Happ and CC can contribute out of the pen, that could be huge.
The Yankees are the opposite of most teams in the sport. When the Yankees get to their pen with a lead, the game is virtually over. In the playoffs, they don't even need a "quality start", just 2 strong times through the order and then it's lights out. They can even win a Verlander game if they just hang in long enough to get him out of the game.
Katie's point boils down to: over history, you need one elite category out of three to win a Series: 1) starting pitching, 2) OPS, or 3) relief pitching. This Yankees team has both 2 and 3 at a very elite level. Severino could even improve 1, and Betances would make 3 absolutely silly. Nevermind if somehow they get back a fully healthy Stanton, Encarnacion, Voit, and Sanchez.
