Power of the pen
Miller, relievers ready to take center stage again
CLEVELAND — Andrew Miller had an especially keen interest in Tuesday’s wildcard game, when the Yankees’ bullpen got all but one out of their 8-4 win over the Twins after Luis Severino was knocked out in the first inning.
“[Tuesday] night was a tribute to what they’re capable of,” Miller said Wednesday before the Indians worked out in advance of Thursday’s ALDS opener against the Yankees at Progressive Field. “I couldn’t believe [David Robertson] was out there as long as he was. Those are pretty outlier performances for relievers.”
Miller would know, since he and Cleveland manager Terry Francona helped redefine how bullpens could be used in the playoffs on their way to a World Series appearance last year.
“Hopefully we’re better for it,” Miller said. “We’re about to find out.”
Francona went to Miller early and often — certainly before most other elite relievers would enter a game — and it paid off.
“We got a lot of notoriety for that last year,” said Miller, who added the patellar tendinitis in his right knee that sent him to the DL twice in the season’s second half had improved. “But that’s the way the game’s been going. It’s good to see my fellow [relievers] getting credit for doing something a little unorthodox.”
The Yankees’ bullpen held the Twins to just one run over 8 2/3 innings and allowed the offense to overcome the 3-0 hole Severino dug.
Miller was part of another much-hyped bullpen in The Bronx for half of last season, when he, Dellin Betances and Aroldis Chapman formed a fearsome trio at the back end. But that ended when Miller was shipped to Cleveland and Chapman to the Cubs at the deadline as the Yankees went to a youth movement that has paid off a year later.
Now the Yankees have to deal with Miller in order to win their first playoff series since they beat Baltimore in the 2012 ALDS.
Miller, though, isn’t interested in living in the past.
Asked about facing his old team, the lefty said: “I don’t look at it that way. … I know a lot of guys in that bullpen and they did really well. Good for them, but now they’re the opponent. Our job is to beat them.”
And he’s confident Betances will regain his form after faltering at the end of the regular season — and being bypassed in Tuesday’s win, when he didn’t even warm up as Joe Girardi used four different relievers to get 26 outs.
“I know he wants to be out there,’’ Miller said. “I don’t know that I’ve played with anybody that wants to pitch as much as him and who is willing to take the ball. I guess he didn’t have the greatest final game of the regular season but to me, Dellin’s always found a way to pitch even when he doesn’t have his stuff.”
And he expects him to make an impact in this series.
“He’s always one minor adjustment from being the guy we’ve seen,’’ Miller said. “He’s not anybody on this team wants to face or anybody in this league wants to face. He’s as good as they come. Everybody goes through ups and downs. His downs don’t last very long.”
As for his current team that last season came up one win shy of its first title since 1948, Miller is confident it can grow from that heartbreak.
“It doesn’t mean you guarantee a win or get back to where you were, but you’d like to think we have a lot of guys this clubhouse that got to experience that,” Miller said. “And not many people in this sport even have the playoff experience we gleaned just in one postseason last year.”