Luis Severino shows why he was handed the ball for Opening Day start

TORONTO — When Aaron Boone officially named Luis Severino as his Opening Day starter on March 17, he explained it in the simplest of terms.

“We just feel it’s Sevy’s time,” Boone said.

Severino, making his first Opening Day start, more than backed up his new manager’s confidence Thursday in the Yankees’ 6-1 victory over the Blue Jays.

“It means a lot,” Severino said afterward. “They gave me the ball, they trusted me and I’m glad I threw the kind of game I did.”

Severino, who went 14-6 with a 2.98 ERA last season and finished third in the American League Cy Young voting, allowed one hit in 5 2⁄3 scoreless innings. The righthander, who ranked fourth in the AL last season with 230 strikeouts, walked three and struck out seven.

“I was calm like a normal game,” Severino said. “Just tried to hit the glove.”

He took the mound with a 2-0 lead, thanks to Giancarlo Stanton’s two-run homer to right-center in the top of the first.

“I’m happy those guys are here,” Severino said, smiling as he referenced sluggers Stanton, Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez. “I have a two-run lead in the first inning, that’s big.”

The bottom of the first turned out to be the only one in which Severino experienced some difficulty.

He struck out leadoff man Devon Travis with a 100-mph fastball, then got Josh Donaldson to ground weakly to first. Severino momentarily lost his command, walking Justin Smoak and Curtis Granderson. After a visit from pitching coach Larry Rothschild, he struck out Kendrys Morales swinging at a slider to end the inning.

“It helped me,” Severino said of Rothschild’s visit. “Larry’s a great pitching coach. I was trying to do too much, rushing to the plate. He told me to calm down, that’s what I did. I threw every pitch with a purpose.”

Severino walked Donaldson with one out in the sixth and struck out Smoak looking at a slider. It was Severino’s 91st pitch and Boone decided to bring in Chad Green, who struck out Granderson to end the inning.

“He gets the strikeout to end his day, but we felt like he was probably up against the end,” Boone said. “But I thought it was really exciting to see him kind of struggle for a couple hitters [in the first] and rein it in. We talked about all that he’s been through at the big-league level, the ups and downs. I think all those experiences . . . you saw what looked a lot more like an experienced pitcher with obviously elite stuff.”

Judge was impressed.

“Just executing his pitches, I think that was the biggest thing he was doing today,” he said. “I didn’t see him fall behind too many batters. One inning he did a little bit, but for the most part, he was attacking hitters. He was getting 0-1, 0-2, and then with the kind of stuff he has, when those batters are down 0-1 or 0-2, it’s tough to come back [from] that.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.