Brian Cashman addressed the media this past afternoon, but a storyline from last night’s win for the Yankees centered around the continued struggles of Clay Holmes. He blew another save, and while the Phillies couldn’t complete the comeback, it still raises massive question marks about their bullpen right now. They’re starting to see the nucleus of this bullpen form with Tommy Kahnle, Luke Weaver, and Michael Tonkin being joined by new addition Mark Leiter Jr. after yesterday’s trade. Still, Cashman showed faith in the team’s closer when asked about it at the presser.
“I’m comfortable with Clay Holmes, I’m comfortable with what we have, I’m more comfortable with what we added to what we have…I didn’t enter the market looking for closers…I was looking for the best available talent.”
With the way he’s pitched as of late, it’s hard to find nuggets of gold, but can the Yankees truly trust Clay Holmes in the ninth?
Brian Cashman is Comfortable With Yankees’ Bullpen, But Should He Be?
Clay Holmes got off to a red-hot start this season, but since mid-June has struggled to nail down wins for the Yankees in key games. They had a chance to sweep the Baltimore Orioles heading into the All-Star Break, a chance to take a series opener against the Boston Red Sox a few weeks back, and a chance to sweep the Kansas City Royals a month ago. A slump for your closer can completely change the way your team performs and carries itself for weeks.
Last night could have been another painful loss for the Bronx Bombers, a game where they should have cruised to victory after a dramatic three-run bomb from new third baseman Jazz Chisholm. The bullpen stepped up, the offense found a way to deliver some sacrifice flies, and the Yankees were able to bail their closer out; but when can their closer start bailing them out?
We’ve seen flashes of it, his two-inning save against the Red Sox this past weekend was a heroic effort that helped the Yankees complete the comeback when they were down to their final strike.
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One of the changes that Clay Holmes has recently tried to make is related to his pitch usage, throwing more and more breaking balls to mask a sinker that batters have hit well all season. It worked like a charm against Boston in that two-inning save, and his stuff looked crisp against the Phillies last night until he spiked a ball into the dirt to allow the tying run to score.
This change is one that I think will do him well, as both his sweeper (38.3%) and slider (41.4%) are more reliable swing-and-miss pitches, and batters struggle to generate damage contact against them. The underlying metrics are great for Clay Holmes, but he has to put it together in big spots and hope he can get some of the rotten batted-ball luck to turn around for him.
Not all of his struggles are just luck that we should chalk up to the normal variance of a season, but they’re certainly exaggerated by it. The Yankees didn’t add a closer, but they did reinforce the bullpen, and Brian Cashman is confident that those moves can give Aaron Boone weapons in the ninth inning that he can call upon with confidence.