Clay Holmes blew his 11th save of the season Tuesday night, allowing a walk-off grand slam to Wyatt Langford that led to Aaron Boone finally admitting postgame the Yankees are a little worried about his shaky season.
"I’m not going to answer that right now when we’re raw and emotional,” Boone said about a closer change. “We’ll talk through and do what we think is the best thing. He’s really important to us down there. We need his excellence to be part of the group down there. So this is a tough one."
Not a tough choice for Brandon Tierney: the Yankees have pulled Holmes from the role in the past, and it’s time again.
“You cannot run him out there. You can't justify this anymore,” BT said. “I understand that there's other situations which we've hit a lot, like DJ LeMahieu, but there’s nothing to decipher anymore: what you do with Clay Holmes is you tell him you're not a closer anymore, that's it. He has blown eight of his last 18 games, and I know that there seems like there's a lot wrong with the Yankees, but think about this: if you only blew two or three, which most quality closers do if that many, the Yankees are up four games and their entire world seems very different.”
BT credits the Yankees for their patience in tough situations, even if fans hate it, but at this point, enough is enough.
“They cannot be patient here. Put him in the seventh or eighth, but get Clay Holmes out of the ninth. That is the easy part of today's discussion; anybody can rail on a closer who stinks, but it’s solution time, and they have to do it starting today,” BT said.
So who should it be? Luke Weaver, who has been aces all year? Tommy Kahnle, whose 2.00 ERA leads the ‘bullpen?
BT has another idea:
“Holmes is out, Luis Gil is in, that’s it,” BT said. “Clarke Schmidt, you're in the rotation, Luis Gil, you’re the closer, Clay Holmes, you're done.”
Sal not feeling it so much.
“How many games has he closed?” Sal asked, and when BT said ‘it doesn’t matter,’ it’s au contrere. “Oh, it does. They don't have a closer, and this problem cannot be fixed.”