NEW YORK (AP) — A battered bullpen has come down to this for the New York Yankees: outfielder Austin Slater was their most effective reliever against the Detroit Tigers on Wednesday night.
For only the third time in their century-plus history, the Yankees have lost consecutive games by 10 or more runs. Their bullpen allowed nine earned runs for the second day in a row in an 11-1 rout by the Detroit Tigers
that followed a 12-2 wipeout in the series opener.“These last two nights have obviously been
rough,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Mark Leiter Jr., Camilo Doval, Tim Hill and Luke Weaver all gave up runs as Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter and Colt Keith each hit a two-run homer.
New York's bullpen has a 5.37 ERA since the All-Star break, raising it to 4.54 for the season — up from 3.62 on last year's American League champions and on track to be the team's highest since 1995.
“We’ve played good teams. We can’t get away with as much mistakes against teams like that,” catcher Austin Wells said. "We’ve put ourselves in holes. I think we’re at our best when we’re getting ahead."
New York's previous back-to-back losses by at least 10 runs were on the road, at the Chicago White Sox and St. Louis Browns on Sept. 26 and 28, 1908, and at the California Angels on Aug. 27-28, 1988.
Led by starters whose 3.67 ERA is fourth best and an offense that leads the major leagues with 752 runs and 246 homers, the Yankees (80-65) are a percentage point ahead of Boston (81-66) for the top AL wild card. With 17 games left, they appear unlikely to make up a three-game deficit to AL East-leading Toronto, which holds the tiebreaker.
Weaver has a 5.01 ERA since returning June 20 from a strained left hamstring. He had a 1.05 ERA in 24 appearances when he went on the IL.
Leiter has allowed runs in five of his last six outings, raising his ERA to 5.32, and Tim Hill in three of his last four, lifting his to 3.14.
Since returning Aug. 26 from a strained left oblique, Fernando Cruz hasn’t been quite the strikeout machine he was earlier this season. He has fanned 11 batters over his last 7 2/3 innings, down from 54 over 33 innings before he got hurt.
Devin Williams, a two-time All-Star closer, has a 5.50 ERA, allowing more earned runs than he did in the previous three years combined.
Camilo Doval, another former All-Star, has a 6.59 ERA in 16 outings since he was acquired from San Francisco at the July 31 trade deadline.
“Look, this is two days,” Boone said. “The bullpen has been closing out some really important games for us of late that’s let us go on a pretty good run. These are two nights in a row where we haven’t got it done, but we’re also behind and chasing a little bit.”
In his only previous big league mound appearance, for San Francisco at Atlanta on Aug. 29, 2021, Slater threw six pitches at 69.5 mph to 75.3 mph, walking Ehire Adrianza and retiring Freddie Freeman on a flyout.
After Slater relieved Weaver, he threw 10 pitches at 36.4 mph to 42.4 mph, giving up an infield single to Dillon Dingler before Parker Meadows and Javier Báez grounded into forceouts.
“I asked him what he wanted to do and he told me he wanted to throw two different pitches,” Wells said, “but then he stuck with a 36 mph pitch that was actually really good, so it worked well.”
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