Yankees reliever Devin Williams seems to have found himself
Devin Williams appears to have turned his season around.
It doesn’t mean the righthander will be getting his closer job back — there’s no reason to make that move, given the way Luke Weaver has thrown the ball this season — but potentially recapturing the form that made him one of the game’s most feared closers is far from insignificant.
Since losing the closer duties to Weaver at the end of April, Williams has had scoreless outings in seven of eight appearances. His most recent outing, in which the righthander struck out the Mets' Pete Alonso, Mark Vientos and Brandon Nimmo in the eighth inning on Friday night, might have been the best he’s looked in a Yankees uniform.
“He was great. Fastball was good. He threw a couple of changeups that just disappeared,” Aaron Boone said. “[From] my vantage point over there, in our dugout, the depth on those pitches [the changeup, nicknamed “the Airbender”] was really good. That’s who he is right there, and we’re seeing it more and more.”
An effective Williams gives Boone yet another dependable arm to deploy in one of the sport’s best units. Boone has an array of arms at his disposal — everything from the slow stuff of sidearming lefthander Tim Hill to splitter specialists Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr. to Weaver’s precision fastball and nasty changeup. (Cruz had one of his few hiccups on the season Saturday, allowing a ninth-inning run in the Mets' 3-2 victory and taking the loss.)
None of the Yankees' relievers, other than the just-off-the-injured-list Jonathan Loaisiga, would be considered flame-throwers in the traditional sense.
“It just shows there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat, right?” Boone said. “You look down there and some of the guys and the different ways they do it. A handful of our guys, obviously, it’s really good whether it’s some version of change, split, forkball, whatever you want to say. Good pitchers come in different shapes and sizes and different looks. I feel like we have a lot of them right now.”
Righty reliever Jake Cousins hit a recent roadblock in his rehab from the right elbow flexor strain that forced him to start the season on the injured list. After throwing his second live batting practice of his rehab process, Cousins has been “four, five days” into a “no-throw” period, Boone said before Saturday’s game, because of “something with his pec” muscle.
“We don’t think it’s anything serious, but enough to hold him back a few days,” Boone said.
Boone said Cousins underwent testing that did not show any damage in the pectoral muscle, which often can be a precursor to shoulder issues with pitchers.
“I just think it was him having a little bit of discomfort, so hopefully it’s not anything serious,” Boone said.
Oswaldo Cabrera, who had to be taken off the field in an ambulance late Monday night in Seattle after suffering a broken ankle on an ugly play at the plate in the ninth inning, underwent surgery on Thursday because of some ligament damage in the ankle. Though it's not a surprise, Boone said Friday that it's “probably unlikely” that he will be back this season.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.