The Yankees rotation has turned a lot of heads throughout baseball, and with the help of elite defense all over the diamond, has produced some of the best numbers in the game.

After Jameson Taillon tossed eight scoreless innings against the defending AL East Champion Tampa Bay Rays on Friday, the Yanks have now had a starter go eight-plus frames in three of their last five games.

Entering Friday, opponents reached base 27.3 percent of the time, the lowest mark in the league, and their 2.78 combined ERA is the second-lowest in baseball. Unsurprisingly, one could see why Aaron Boone had a strong proclamation about them on Friday night.

“I think they’ve been the best group, to this point, in the league," Boone said after Friday's 2-0 win. "I caution that with it’s early, and we gotta keep doing it, but I’m not surprised that they’re going out and pitching as well as they are. I know how together they all are, and it’s good to see them taking pride in their day and being the next guy to really step up, but I’m really not surprised at any of their success.”

This is all while Gerrit Cole, who gets the ball on Saturday afternoon - has had his fair share of rough outings this season. But he and the rest of the staff (especially Taillon) have taken strike-throwing to a new level. They have the lowest walk rate in the league on almost every account (1.9 BB/9, 5.2 BB% entering Friday).

"You’ve gotta be in the strike zone," said Boone. "Obviously, getting ahead’s important, strike-throwing is really important, and when you’re doing that, then you can start leveraging counts and dictating counts and then you can start to get chases by moving it off the plate when you have that count leverage.”

Taillon didn't walk a single batter on Friday.

"We wanted to attack, we wanted to get a read on what they were doing and where they were looking and stuff, so our goal was just to fill up the strike zone, mix, and kind of go from there, and we just never got off that rhythm," Taillon told the YES Network after his outing.

Taillon had notable struggles last season. In his first 15 starts last year, his ERA was a sky-high 5.43. In his final 14, it was 3.25, and this season, it's down to 2.49.

“That’s a really tough lineup, and they’ve seen me a good amount, but I feel like I’m in a better spot this year than when they saw me last year," said Taillon. "I told [Kyle Higashioka] before the game I was gonna just trust him – he’s seen these guys a lot more than me. Command was good – I didn’t necessarily have my best stuff. The defense was amazing tonight. I think everyone around the field made a good play at every position. A lot goes into it.”

The narrative that the Yankees had "no pitching" was always silly, but Boone may not be wrong in his sentiment. At the very least, he's certainly pretty darn close.

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