‘Throwback’ Ryan Yarbrough has become a Yankees rotation savior with tweaked pitch

As an AL East veteran, Ryan Yarbrough has pitched against the Yankees enough for them to know how much trouble he can give lineups.

But what the left-hander, often described by Aaron Boone as a “throwback,” has now done for them in five starts since moving into the rotation may even be better than they could have hoped for.

Armed with an improved changeup — thanks in part to a former Yankees minor league pitching coach — multiple arm slots and a wide-ranging arsenal that ranges from 67.7-90.9 mph, Yarbrough has been a savior at the back end of the Yankees rotation and will try to keep it going on Saturday against the Red Sox.

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“It’s a lot of fun [catching him],” Austin Wells said Friday. “I feel like you get to appreciate the art of being able to call a game. The way he’s able to throw pitches in the entire zone and fill it up and still get the swing and miss and chase that guys that throw 100 do, I think it’s arguably at times more fun to do something like that with a guy like that.”

Yarbrough entered Saturday with a 2.08 ERA in five starts with 24 strikeouts in 26 innings since he entered the rotation.

To get there, the process began in spring training with the Blue Jays.

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Their bullpen coach, Graham Johnson, previously served as the pitching coach at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, so he speaks the same language and has a similar approach as the Yankees’ pitching group.

Johnson began working with Yarbrough on tweaking his changeup, and he got promising results with it before Yarbrough triggered the opt out of his minor league deal and then signed a $2 million contract with the Yankees three days before Opening Day.

At the time, Yarbrough offered bullpen depth but with the potential to swing into the rotation if needed, and it did not take long for that to be the case.

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“We obviously know Graham really well and know where he was coming from on the changes,” pitching coach Matt Blake said Friday. “It at least showed that Yarbs is interested in making adjustments to his arsenal and opened up the conversation, ‘What was the adjustment? What were you doing before? Here’s some other thoughts around it.’ ”

Yarbrough joined the Yankees in Miami for their exhibition against the Marlins and sat down with the pitching group to dive into what he had been working on.

They let the first week or so of the season play out with his old changeup before they made a subtle adjustment — using the same grip, but lining the laces up slightly differently to induce more drop.

The result?

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Yarbrough has thrown 137 changeups (20.6 percent of his pitches) and opposing batters are hitting just .167 with a .367 slugging percentage against it.

It has accounted for 11 strikeouts and a 46.6 percent whiff rate compared to 22.7 percent last season.

The average exit velocity against it is 79.4 mph, the weak contact part of why he ranks in the 99th percentile in average exit velocity against (84.1).

“I think it’s just getting a little more depth to it, a little bit more bite,” Yarbrough said of the pitch that has averaged 4.1 more inches of vertical drop from last year. “But I also think now we’re setting it up and using other things to help it continue to get better.”

The “other things” include his four-seam fastball that averages 88.3 mph, a sinker that averages 87.2 mph, a cutter that averages 83.3 mph and a sweeper that averages 71.8 mph.

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Only the changeup and cutter come from the same arm angle (11 degrees), with the other three pitches ranging from nine degrees to 21, according to Baseball Savant — all much more side-armed than league average.

“He’s got the different angle,” DJ LeMahieu said. “He’s not going to light up the radar gun, but all his pitches feel like they get on you. His fastballs look like they get on you and his offspeed looks extra slow. Just one of those guys that has good stuff and knows what he’s doing out there.”