From Bryan Hoch:
The telephone rang in the visitors’ bullpen during the top of the eighth inning on Monday night, representing the Yankees’ first call for Devin Williams since displacing him from the closer’s role. With a three-run deficit, it felt like a low-stress opportunity for the right-hander to regain his dented confidence.
That changed when Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells drilled consecutive run-scoring doubles, making it a higher-leverage situation than manager Aaron Boone initially anticipated. Though the comeback stalled there, Williams held the line, tossing a spotless frame in the Yankees’ 4-3 loss to the Orioles at Camden Yards.
“It’s just little things here that can get your mojo and remind you just how darned good you are at this game,” Boone said. “Hopefully, it’s a step in the right direction.”
I love how Hoch somehow turned this game into a referendum on Devin freakin’ Williams.
In any event, Will Warren’s start really boiled down to one inning. He walked the first two batters of the inning, and then allowed a three-run home run. Simply astonishingly stupid. The idea that this nimrod didn’t just go after the first two guys is maddening to me. People hit home runs off of you! It happens all of the time! The key is to limit your damage by not giving them extra runners! So just challenge dudes! What’s the worst that could happen? They hit a home run off of you? That’s effectively the same as walking two dudes before a home run!
The Orioles are not hitting well right now, and the Yankees did everything they could to make things easier for them, with the Orioles’ first run scoring on a badly botched play in center field, where the third out turned into an RBI double by Trent Grisham just losing it (a ball with a 95% chance of being an out), and then Warren walking the first two batters in the third ahead of a home run. Just awful.
And yet…Ryan Yarbrough was great, and then Devin Williams didn’t suck, so the Yankees didn’t even need to burn any relievers that they actually rely on, and they almost made a comeback! It was kind of cool, even though Felix Bautista fucking DOMINATED them in the ninth.
The Yankees worked a LOT of 3-2 counts tonight, but just couldn’t do anything with them. Belli has been working good counts for, like, a week, and then doing jack shit with them. Sugano DID look fucking AMAZING tonight. The break on his splitter was OUTSTANDING. Goldy also had a home run taken away from him, so, well, sometimes you just have shit luck.
I honestly think this EXACT same hitting performance from the Yankees would typically end up with them scoring six runs or so. They just had some bad luck. So I’m not too concerned.
The featured image is Will Warren’s soul leaving his body on the three-run home run.
😂
Nimmo, 9 RBIs in 3-innings, Goldschmidt, 10 RBIs on the season. Someone needs to step it up.