This version of Luis Severino is just what Mets need after years of Yankees hype: ‘Stuff happens’

He has spent the summer reminding us, every so often, of what was, of what used to be. It is sometimes impossible to believe that Luis Severino is 30 years old. It’s never easy to watch our sporting idols remind us that they’re just like the rest of us, that they aren’t allowed to stay 23 forever, either.

It’s even more so with young pitchers, though. Even with all the numbers and analysis now woven into baseball’s DNA, there is still something thrilling about a kid with gasoline in his arm, throwing smoke, throwing filthy fastballs and startling sliders past the very best hitters in the world.

“I know one thing,” Joe Girardi said late in the 2017 season. “I’m glad I’m not a hitter when I look at what Sevy does out there some nights.”

That was the year Severino arrived, when he made the Yankees out of Tampa for the first time, one of the leaders of the Baby Bombers that were going to plant a string of championship flags in The Bronx.

There was Gary Sanchez, who a year earlier nearly won Rookie of the Year playing only 53 games because he’d crushed one home run for every 10 of his 201 at-bats. There was Greg Bird, with a swing custom-built for Yankee Stadium; he was going to play first base for the next 10 or 12 years. Clint Frazier was coming. Gleyber Torres was coming.

At the top, there was Luis Severino and there was Aaron Judge. They were going to be the Whitey and Mickey of this new generation of pinstripes, Guidry and Reggie.

Judge got more of the attention only because that happens when a rookie hits 52 home runs. But on the days Severino pitched, nobody energized the stadium like him. He won 14 games. He pitched to a 2.98 ERA. He struck out 10.7 men per nine innings, had a WHIP barely over 1. He finished third in the Cy Young Award vote.

“Those were good times,” Severino said a few weeks ago. “But baseball is a funny game. And sometimes stuff happens.”

Judge is the one still chasing that elusive championship in The Bronx. Within two years, stuff began to happen to Severino. His arm betrayed him: his rotator cuff, then his elbow, requiring Tommy John surgery. He pitched 18 innings, total, from 2019 until 2021. Last year, he had a 6.65 ERA with the Yankees.

He was no longer a Baby, and soon he was no longer a Bomber. The Mets signed him Dec. 1: one year, $13 million. File that in the folder labeled, “What the hell?” It was the first of a series of quiet, smart acquisitions by David Stearns that built the bones of this roster, and Severino helped make it look wise: 11-7, 3.91.

He doesn’t strike out the world any more. His radar readings can still sizzle, but nobody writes the same kind of breathless poetry about pitchers in their early 30s the way they do in their early 20s. But for this Mets team, in this Mets season, Severino has been the anchor of a starting rotation that has delivered them to Game 3 of the National League Championship Series.

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Sean Manaea has become the ace, piling up one eye-popping start after another since the All-Star break. Jose Quintana has matched him lately. When you look at David Peterson now, you look at someone who might start getting Cy Young votes next season. That trio of lefties has been terrific.

Severino has been the right-handed rock. He’s had excellent outings. He’s had some that made you wonder. But he’s taken the ball every fifth day, 31 times in all, plus two more in the postseason. If he pitches six innings Wednesday night in Game 3, as he did against both Milwaukee and Philadelphia, he’ll reach 200 for the year.

In April, that number seemed unlikely.

Now, just add it to the list for this improbable Mets season.

“I think staying in my routine, doesn’t matter if we’re in the playoffs, come here like this is the first game of the season,” Severino said of his durability. “So not worrying about how many innings I got. Just worry about what I need to do to feel good. I think my arm, right now, feels the same way, feels good. I just need to stick to my routine.”

Severino’s playoff history is spotty, going all the way back to his first start after that terrific 2017 season, when he lasted only a third of an inning against the Twins in the wild-card round. A year later he was also bombed by Boston in the pivotal third game of the ALDS. That’s a matter of record, but so were Manaea’s postseason scuffles until the last two weeks.

“I’m just going to go through some videos, see the matchups, see them take at-bats” he said. “And then I’m just going to forget everything, go to my house, probably play video games and that will be it. Don’t worry about tomorrow.”

Just as well. Once you reach this side of 30, what’s the point of dwelling on yesterday?