It was bound to finally happen.
No matter how good or how bad your bullpen is, it will have a bad night. And that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night for the New York Yankees, en route to their third straight loss.
There were factors leading up to it. The biggest was that starting pitcher James Paxton had his pitch count capped at 85 pitches, leading to him going just 4 and 2/3 innings.
Fell in crunch time
In the sixth inning, DJ LeMahieu hit a three run home run to put the Yankees up 7-4. After, the Blue Jays scored seven unanswered runs to end the game.
Once Paxton was removed in the fifth, Adam Ottavino and Tommy Kahnle each got two outs to get through six innings. After those guys, it went way downhill.
With Jonathan Holder in for the seventh, an error by Gleyber Torres and a hit by pitch set up Teoscar Hernandez. He ripped a two-bagger down the line for a double and two runs batted in.
Zack Britton gave up a hit and a walk, before Vladimir Guerrero Jr. rocketed a sinker over the left-center field wall. Once Britton was removed, Luis Cessa came in and gave up back-to-back home runs to Randal Grichuk and former Yankee Brandon Drury. For Grichuk, it was his second home run of the night.
Now, all the Yankee bullpen can do is bounce back and do their job on Thursday. With a recent off-day, guys should be relatively rested and ready to pitch more big innings.