Yankees need Ottavino, bullpen to step it up
The Stable, as the Rays relievers are now known, should strike fear in the Yankees — and not the fear of being hit by a 98-mph fastball as was threatened by their manager last month. No, the Yankees should be worried because the Rays bullpen is one of the most effective in baseball. A mighty ‘pen is something the Yankees expected to have.
Instead, the Yankees come out of the American League wild card series with a red flag waving over their so-called super bullpen, which they invested over $40 million to build. Despite stockpiling highly-paid relievers, the Yankees’ bullpen finished in the middle of the pack in the AL with a 4.51 ERA and a 1.34 WHIP.
Now, they go into Monday’s Game 1 of the best-of-five series — which will be played without a day off — with the challenge of how to manage their bullpen.
The Yankees weakness became glaringly apparent Wednesday night in the bottom of the seventh inning of a tie game when Aaron Boone notably steered clear of Adam Ottavino. Instead he ended up having to have Jonathan Loaisiga face Jordan Luplow.
While Loaisiga has been effective this season, perhaps it was his inexperience in such a high-leverage situation that made him decide to throw a breaking ball to Luplow, who crushed it for a two-run, game-tying double.
The Yankees had enough of a rested bullpen — thanks to the blowout of Shane Bieber the night before — and their offense was “on” Wednesday night to allow them to work around a Chad Green two-run double to Jose Ramirez, the mistake by Loaisiga and even an RBI-single allowed by Aroldis Chapman after Zack Britton, asked to work over two innings, issued two, two-out walks.
But, that was against the third least productive offense in the American League. Only the Royals and Rangers scored fewer runs this season.
As the Yankees already know, having lost eight out of 10 games to the Rays in the regular season, Tampa’s offense is better. They scored 47 runs in 10 games and hit 16 homers — the most by any opponent — against Yankees pitchers this season.
The Yankees’ starters have gotten stronger as the season went on, but
now the bullpen has to hold up.
Admittedly, the Yankees bullpen took a huge hit back in July when Tommy Kahnle tore his ulnar collateral ligament requiring Tommy John surgery. But Green hasn’t looked as sharp as last season and they are also “missing” Ottavino, who never pitched in the ALWCS.
Boone said he has not lost faith in the right-hander the Yankees signed to a three-year, $27 million deal before last season.
“Otto is still going to be in big spots,” Boone said. “Especially when there are difficult, challenging, right-handed lanes. This [Rays] team is kind of unique with all the
switch hitters and some of the lefties they have sprinkled in. Otto is going to find himself in a big spot, in a big game probably more than once.
“There are going to be obvious non-pinch hitting situations and obvious lanes, and there are going to have to be situations where he’s in where he probably is going to have to be facing a lefty, too. He’s capable.”
Yet, the manager’s actions speak louder than his explanations.
Ottavino had the dramatic meltdown in Buffalo early last month and finished the year with an ugly 5.89 ERA. The hard-hit rate against him was one of the worst in baseball and his 26.5 swing-and-miss percentage was the worst of his career.
Still, in his last seven games he pitched to a 1.59 ERA with 10 strikeouts over 5.2 innings of work. The underlying numbers aren’t that dramatically different than 2019 with a 3.52 FIP (compared to 3.44 last year) and he still had a 12.27 K/9 this year.
But Ottavino may have sowed the seeds for this lack of trust last year. He made eight appearances in the playoffs last season but managed just 10 outs, pitching to an 8.11 ERA.
It is something that even Ottavino was thinking about last month.
“Now that I’ve been [to the playoffs] a few times and I haven’t won anything yet or played particularly well, I am really, really glad that we’re gonna get another opportunity here to go out and try again,” Ottavino said.
To beat the Rays, the Yankees bullpen has to be better. They will eventually have to give Ottavino a chance to rewrite his postseason history.