What's Going on With The New York Yankees' Bullpen?
Remember when the Yankees had the most dominant bullpen in MLB? How everyone was a key cog in a machine-like unit?
Believe it or not, despite some recent disastrous performances, the Bronx Bombers still have the lowest bullpen ERA in the majors. Their 3.16 mark is ahead of the second-ranked Cleveland Guardians, at 3.40.
However, on June 11, the bullpen’s ERA was 2.78, which is a massive difference between the current number. The past few weeks since then has shown significant regression to the mean, due to overuse of certain relievers and ill-timed implosions, including a truly devastating collapse on Sunday in Colorado.
Even with a hot streak from Tommy Kahnle and the return of Ian Hamilton, several relievers such as Michael King and especially Ron Marinaccio and Nick Ramirez have been performing poorly lately. Wandy Peralta and Clay Holmes have also had a few blips on the radar as well.
Peralta still has an ERA of 2.48 and Holmes has a 2.39 ERA, but both have struggled with pitch control; although they’ve excelled at getting out of tough situations, their tendencies to walk batters have created such situations. Holmes in particular had a pair of bad outings lately, both of which involved stranding inherited runners.
King has recently shown a tendency to give up home runs despite using a sinker. The home runs are the result of hanging his breaking ball, which has occurred far more frequently than the Yankees want. Even if the ball doesn’t leave the yard, most of the hangers still wind up as base hits. Considering that King is often used in high leverage situations, this doesn’t bode well when he tries to strand inherited runners.
Finally, the ugliest of all are Marinaccio and Ramirez. Since the start of July, Marinaccio has been a massive liability with severe control issues. During the month, he’s 0-2 with a 9.64 ERA, and far more concerning is his WHIP of 3.00 and opposing batting average of .421. In his last two appearances, he’s earned the loss. Ramirez has been another massive liability; although he’s had some clutch performances, there’s a reason why he has mostly been a career minor leaguer. Entering July 5, he had an ERA of 1.69, but that number has ballooned to 3.57 thanks to a number of ineffective appearances as of late.
The bullpen’s recent struggles have been exemplified in three recent, brutal defeats.
On July 5, the Yankees had a chance to win a four-game series against the Baltimore Orioles; after winning the first two games, the team took a 2-0 entering the sixth inning when Aaron Boone took the ball from Randy Vazquez and put Ramirez in the game. The Orioles promptly got three straight hits against him, cutting the deficit to 2-1 and resulting in King taking over. King promptly allowed a two-run triple to Jordan Westburg that was also the product of bad defense, and Baltimore took a 3-2 lead in a game they would win 6-3. A blowout win for the Orioles the next day resulted in a series split and a bitter taste in NY’s mouth.
A particularly terrible bullpen performance came on July 9 against the Chicago Cubs, although another poor defensive play started the implosion. After splitting the first two games of a three-game set, the Yankees nursed a 4-1 lead into the seventh inning and were seemingly in cruise control. However, Boone chose to take out Domingo German on a low pitch count after giving up a leadoff walk, replacing him with Hamilton.
After getting the first out, Hamilton allowed a single before inducing a tailor-made double play ball that was booted by Gleyber Torres, loading the bases. Kahnle then entered but failed to strand any of the inherited runners; he traded a run for an out but then allowed a two-run, pinch-hit single to Yan Gomes that tied the game.
Marinaccio and Holmes did the rest in the eighth; Marinaccio loaded the bases with nobody out by allowing a single and two walks. Holmes entered to clean up the mess, but instead allowed a go-ahead sacrifice fly and allowed another run to score on a wild pitch. The Cubs eventually won 7-4 to take the series, leaving the Yankees frustrated as they entered the All-Star break.
But the worst loss of all came on Sunday against the Colorado Rockies, in the finale of a three-game set. With a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the eighth, Kahnle and his microscopic 0.55 ERA entered the game. He surprisingly fell apart and loaded the bases by allowing a walk and two singles, and Boone gave the ball to Holmes. Needing just one out to get out of the jam, Holmes instead allowed a grand slam to C.J. Cron that gave the Rockies a 5-3 lead.
The Yankees fought back to tie the game in the ninth and eventually took a 7-5 lead in the 11th inning, but Ramirez, looking for his first career save, immediately allowed a game-tying, two-run home run to Nolan Jones. He retired the next two batters, but Marinaccio then entered and immediately lost his composure, resulting in a walk-off home run to Alan Trejo, who hadn’t hit a single homer all year until then. The Rockies’ 8-7 win allowed them to take two of three; the Yankees still have yet to win a series in July.
These embarrassing losses, coupled with a still-struggling and inconsistent lineup have contributed to the team falling into last place in the AL East. New York is currently on the outside looking in for a playoff spot.
What was once the team’s greatest strength has now joined a myriad of other weaknesses. However, their dominance early in the season may be a result of Aaron Boone tending to over-rely on them after the occasional subpar starting pitching performance. Now, with the bullpen running on fumes, they’ve ironically left Yankee starters nothing to show for great pitching efforts, such as Gerrit Cole on Sunday.
If the bullpen doesn’t collect a little extra fire, the Yankees could be in deep trouble.
