TAMPA, Fla. — Shortly after the New York Yankees traded for Devin Williams, manager Aaron Boone called Luke Weaver to let him know he would no longer be the club’s closer after he claimed the role late in the 2024 season. Weaver understood. The Yankees added a closer with a 1.93 ERA since 2019, the third-lowest in the sport.
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But Williams has not had that level of effectiveness in his first season with the Yankees. His ERA is up to 9.00 after blowing an 8-4 lead in Saturday’s 10-8 extra-innings loss to the Tampa Bay Rays. Weaver’s ERA is 0.00 on the season. Williams entered the ninth inning of Saturday’s game with an 8-4 lead, a non-save situation, but he allowed four runs in the inning.
The Yankees’ closer was the victim of some poor batted ball luck in the inning. With one out, Jose Caballero hit a soft grounder to Oswaldo Cabrera at third base. Caballero was awarded an infield single, and he was allowed to take second base after Cabrera airmailed the throw over Paul Goldschmidt’s head. Williams then walked the No. 9 hole hitter, Ben Rortvedt. Rays leadoff hitter Chandler Simpson, who made his MLB debut Saturday, picked up his first-career hit with a softly hit ground-rule double down the left field line. Yandy Díaz then beat out an infield single hit to Anthony Volpe. Brandon Lowe followed with a bloop two-run single to tie the game at 8.
“Really, just the changeup to Lowe, I’d like to have that one back,” Williams said. “Tough luck on the double down the line. Aside from that, I thought I threw the ball pretty well.”
First big league RBI 🤝 first big league score pic.twitter.com/qX4l44ZsYV
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) April 19, 2025
Williams registered zero whiffs on his changeup, his signature pitch. That’s been a problem that has plagued the closer through his nine outings. In 2024, Williams’ whiff rate on his changeup was 48.8 percent. His whiff rate was down to 25.6 percent entering Saturday’s game. His put-away percentage on his changeup is down over 50 percent from last season. Opposing hitters are also squaring up the pitch at a higher frequency than in 2024. He has not been able to figure out why he hasn’t generated the same swing-and-miss numbers on his pitch thus far.
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“I don’t know. Maybe using it too much, to be honest with you,” Williams said. “We’ll work on that.”
When asked if his changeup feels as good as it typically does when he’s throwing it how he wants, Williams was terse.
“Feels great,” he said.
Outside of not generating the same swing-and-miss stuff that he’s usually accustomed to, Williams’ walk rate is toward the bottom of the league. Williams did his job in limiting hard contact from the Rays — and he certainly was unlucky with the batted balls they had — there’s no excuse to walk Rortvedt, who entered Saturday’s game 1-for-18 on the season. That allowed Tampa’s top of the order to come up with just one out and two runners on.
Yankees’ captain Aaron Judge was one of Clay Holmes’ biggest supporters inside the clubhouse last season. When there were calls to replace the closer midway through the season, Judge said there wasn’t anyone else he would want closing games for the Yankees than Holmes. He’s taking a similar approach with Williams so far.
“We went out and got him for a reason,” Judge said. “He’s the best closer in the game. We got a long season. We know this guy is going to save a lot of ballgames for us and help us out. I’m not worried at all. He knows what he needs to do. He’ll go out there and figure it out. Everyone in this room — we want him coming out of the bullpen, especially in a tight game, close game, guys on base, not on base. Nobody in here is worried.”
Being the closer of the Yankees comes with immense pressure, especially after the greatest to ever do it, Mariano Rivera, made it look so easy for nearly two decades. But all-star players face the type of scrutiny in New York that Williams did not experience in Milwaukee. Since the day he reported to spring training, he has made multiple comments about how many reporters are around the Yankees — a stark difference to his days with the Brewers — and he clearly was not comfortable with the team’s longstanding facial-hair policy. Williams said in spring training that if the facial-hair policy had remained in place, he would have considered it a factor in his upcoming free agency this offseason.
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Judge called being an MLB closer the toughest task in all of sports. The Yankees believe Williams has the mental makeup to get through his poor stretch and make his start in pinstripes just a blip of what’s to come.
“That’s part of being a closer in this league and one as good as he’s been,” Boone said. “We got a long way to go. It’s a little bump here early. He’s got all the equipment to get through it.”
(Photo: Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images)
This news was originally published on this post .
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