{"id":677706,"date":"2026-04-17T15:15:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677706\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:15:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:15:34","slug":"yankees-bullpen-struggles-leave-team-searching-for-consistency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/677706\/","title":{"rendered":"Yankees’ bullpen struggles leave team searching for consistency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Yankees<\/a>\u2019 bullpen hasn\u2019t provided much relief lately.<\/p>\n

Yankees relievers surrendered 14 earned runs in 17 innings over this week\u2019s four-game series against the Los Angeles Angels<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bullpen entered Friday with a 5.59 ERA since April 5, a stretch in which the Yankees went just 3-8.<\/p>\n

For the season, the Yankees\u2019 bullpen ERA is 4.13, which ranks 17th among MLB teams<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotta be more consistent with it,\u201d manager Aaron Boone said after Thursday\u2019s 11-4 loss to the Angels in the Bronx. \u201cThat\u2019s why there\u2019s opportunity for these guys to continue to grab roles, cement roles, see what we have, and hopefully some real key people emerge for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bullpen was one of the Yankees\u2019 biggest question marks after the offseason departures of Devin Williams and Luke Weaver, both of whom spent time at closer and in set-up roles last year.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s group of relievers eased those concerns as the Yankees jumped out to a 7-1 start on the strength of their pitching, but it\u2019s been a different story since then.<\/p>\n

David Bednar, the All-Star closer the Yankees acquired at last year\u2019s trade deadline, entered Friday with a 4.70 ERA. He blew his first save in six opportunities in last Saturday\u2019s 5-4 loss in Tampa, taking the loss to fall to 0-2.<\/p>\n

Camilo Doval, another pre-deadline big-name acquisition, began Friday with a 7.36 ERA through nine appearances.<\/p>\n

Ryan Yarbrough surrendered a grand slam to Jo Adell in Thursday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

And for the second season in a row, Jake Bird was optioned to Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre after pitching to a 7.71 ERA through eight appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like where Bednar is getting to in his last couple outings,\u201d Boone said. \u201cTimmy Hill is throwing the ball really well. [Brent] Headrick\u2019s throwing the ball well. And all of them, in different spurts, have been key elements in some important, winning, low-scoring games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the left-handers Hill (1.00 ERA through nine appearances) and Headrick (1.74 ERA through 12 appearances) have been bright spots for the Yankee bullpen.<\/p>\n

So has right-hander Fernando Cruz, who entered Friday with a 2.45 ERA.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel like Camilo, even though he got nicked by the homer off of [Mike] Trout [in Monday\u2019s 11-10 win], is throwing the ball really well,\u201d Boone said. \u201cHe\u2019s in the strike zone. Trout is probably the one guy that hits that slider he threw to him out [of the ballpark].\u201d<\/p>\n

But as a whole, the results haven\u2019t been there, as the Yankees began Friday with four blown saves, tied for the fourth most in the American League.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why changes could be coming.<\/p>\n

When Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rod\u00f3n, both rehabbing from elbow operations, return to the big-league rotation in the coming weeks, the Yankees could have a surplus of starting pitching.<\/p>\n

That would allow them to slide pitchers such as Will Warren and\/or the hard-throwing David Weathers into relief roles.<\/p>\n

The Yankees also have a flame-throwing prospect in Carlos Lagrange at Triple-A, and his 103-mph fastball would presumably play well out of the pen. But the Yankees likely want Lagrange to continue to build up his innings as a starter before they consider promoting him as a reliever, meaning he would be more of a second-half solution.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the Aug. 3 trade deadline, a point in the season in which the Yankees often add relievers, as evidenced by last summer\u2019s acquisitions of Bednar, Doval and Bird.<\/p>\n

But the Yankees need to get more out of their current relief corps before then, especially now that their offense has shaken off an early-season slumber.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pitching kind of carried us the first 10 days, two weeks of the season,\u201d Boone said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get all that synced up, though. I know we\u2019ll hit our stride, and feel good about where we\u2019re going to go, and we\u2019re doing some of the right things. But we\u2019ve got to put it together now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Yankees\u2019 bullpen hasn\u2019t provided much relief lately. Yankees relievers surrendered 14 earned runs in 17 innings over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[1797,5,1603,945,1100,8635,1119,4,297,2550,68,2551,2549,4791,142],"class_list":{"0":"post-677706","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-aaron-boone","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bullpen","11":"tag-camilo-doval","12":"tag-david-bednar","13":"tag-fernando-cruz","14":"tag-jake-bird","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-rays","17":"tag-tampa-bay","18":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","19":"tag-tampabay","20":"tag-tampabayrays","21":"tag-tim-hill","22":"tag-yankees"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116420707867736998","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}