The Red Sox didn’t just deal the Yanks their fourth straight loss against their rivals to open up the season, they gave New York a reminder of what it gave away.
Over the offseason, the two rivals agreed to a rare trade, with the Yanks sending righty reliever Adam Ottavino to Boston for cash, as the Red Sox took on the $9 million Ottavino was owed for the season.
Ottavino struggled badly in 2020 and fell out of favor in the 2019 postseason, but he was flat-out dominant for the Yanks for his only full season in pinstripes, posting a 1.90 ERA in 66.1 innings in 2019, striking out 88 batters along the way. That came after a big year in hitter-friendly Colorado, when he pitched to a 2.43 ERA in 77.2 innings while compiling a career-high 112 strikeouts.
His 5.89 ERA in 2020 was concerning to say the least, but was also in a small sample size of 18.1 innings. Still, the Yanks decided to part ways in the final year of Ottavinos’ three-year deal, a move that is looking like a mistake through the first three months of the season.
Ottavino came on in a big spot for Boston on Friday, entering in the eighth inning with the Red Sox leading by one. He responded with a perfect frame, striking out two along the way to pick up his 14th hold of the season, lower his season ERA to 2.64 and help Boston pick up a 5-3 win. Meanwhile, the Yankees may have lost a crucial high-leverage reliever in Zack Britton, who left with a hamstring injury in the same inning that Ottavino was shutting down the Yanks.
While Ottavino has shined for the Red Sox, the pitchers the Yankees added to replace him haven’t contributed much at all. After shedding Ottavino’s $9 million off the payroll, which many saw as a blatant avoidance of the luxury tax threshold, which the Yanks were nearly $1 million short of after adding Corey Kluber and Jameson Taillon, Brian Cashman and company added Darren O’Day and Justin Wilson to fill out the bullpen. Both are hurt and on rehab assignments, and Wilson, who injured his hamstring, has been awful in 2020, posting an ERA north of six, while O’Day was solid when healthy, but has appeared in only 10 games before straining his rotator cuff.
Ottavino has been more valuable than both O’Day and Wilson combined, while the Yankees save just a couple million in the process. So far, that move is looking like a bad mistake, as the righty-heavy Yanks will likely have to try and solve Ottavino many more times the rest of this season.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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