The Yankees lost a heartbreaker Tuesday night, 7-4, after All-Star closer Clay Holmes coughed up a walk-off grand slam to Rangers rookie Wyatt Langford. To make matters worse for the Yankees, the Orioles won and moved to a half-game lead in the AL East.
One of the big subjects of the day now is Holmes' 11th blown save of the season, although our Mike Axisa recently broke down why not all of those were as bad as it sounds. Holmes has 29 saves. No other pitcher has more than eight blown saves, so there's obviously plenty of attention on the role of closer.
On Wednesday, Yankees manager Aaron Boone told reporters that the team will be "creative" in how they decide on who closes games here in the short term (via Jack Curry of YES).
Boone also noted that Holmes would be an option. Some of the other choices:
- Jake Cousins - He has one career save and has now allowed a run in three straight appearances.
- Luke Weaver - He gave up two runs in an inning on Monday, though he had eight straight scoreless outings before that.
- Tommy Kahnle - On Sunday, he allowed three runs on three hits while getting just one out. He was also responsible for a run on Tuesday. Otherwise he might be a fine option.
- Mark Leiter Jr. - The trade deadline acquisition has a 6.08 ERA since joining the Yankees.
- Tim Hill - The lanky lefty was bad on Monday, but that was the only time he allowed a run in his last nine outings.
- Tim Mayza - He's had a 1-2-3 outing in each of his last two appearances, but before that he allowed five runs on seven hits in his six Yankees appearances.
Basically, Boone doesn't have any great options right now. It seems like Kahnle, Hill and Weaver could be a decent combo to try. Maybe.
The Yankees are 80-59 after starting the season 51-22. They could end up with the best record in baseball or feasibly fall to as low as the six seed in the AL, though it's unlikely they'd fall below the top four (in other words, lower than the top wild-card seed). Where they end up in that range, though, depends a lot on how the ninth inning goes over the next few weeks.
