The New York Yankees spent Thursday rebuilding their bullpen ahead of Major League Baseball’s trade deadline. On Friday, manager Aaron Boone attempted to take advantage of a sizable lead against the Miami Marlins to break in a few of his new relievers. Unfortunately, things did not proceed according to plan from there, resulting in a suboptimal first impression.
What began as a 6-0 lead through four innings transformed into a 9-4 advantage heading into the bottom of the seventh inning. Coincidentally, that’s when Boone turned things over to Jake Bird, obtained from the Colorado Rockies to help shore up the middle relief section of the bullpen. Bird surrendered singles to two of the first three batters he faced before walking the fourth. That set the stage for a match-up against All-Star Kyle Stowers, who promptly launched this grand slam:
Predictably, Boone then removed Bird in favor of another new face. Former Pittsburgh Pirates closer David Bednar was summoned to get through the seventh with a 9-8 lead in tow. Bednar was not up for the task. After coercing a ground out off Eric Wagaman’s bat, Bednar served up a home run to Javier Sanoja, a utility player with one home run in his first 91 big-league games.
Just like that, the Yankees and Marlins were tied at 9-9. But the nightmare half-inning wasn’t over. Bednar would then yield a double to the debuting Jakob Marsee, and Marsee would come around to score following a pair of singles (one of which didn’t leave the infield), giving Miami a 10-9 lead. (To Bednar’s credit, he would return for the eighth and notch three outs without much issue.)
The Yankees, who had tied the game at 10-10 in the top of the eighth, then scored two more runs in the top of the ninth to retake the lead. Boone would hand the ninth inning and the save opportunity to the third of New York’s trio of bullpen additions, former San Francisco Giants closer Camilo Doval. Alas, he met a similar fate to the ones suffered through by Bird and Bednar: allowing the tying run to score after a costly error by yet another newcomer, José Caballero, before surrendering a walk-off single on this tapper, resulting in a 13-12 Miami victory:
In all, the Yankees’ new bullpen trio — Bird, Bednar, and Doval — combined to surrender nine runs (seven earned) on nine hits an two walks while recording just seven outs. That is, to paraphrase fomer Yankees skipper Joe Girardi, not what you want.
According to CBS Sports’ research team, the Yankees had won 57 consecutive games in which they’ve held at least a six-run advantage. Their most recent loss in such a situation before Friday came back during the 2023 season, when they blew it against — who else? — these same Marlins.
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