Yankees getting major relief from their effective bullpen

Aaron Boone wasn’t sweating it.

Speaking back on March 13, shortly after finding out two pitchers the Yankees manager was expecting to be stalwarts in his 2023 bullpen – Lou Trivino and Tommy Kahnle – would be starting the season on the injured list, Boone all but shrugged.

“I do feel good about our bullpen and our bullpen depth, even with having Tommy and Lou down to start the season,” Boone said that afternoon. “Feel like we have the people that can step in and not only fill in but potentially impact us too.”

To this point of the season, Boone and the Yankees have seen impact pitcher after impact pitcher when it comes to their relievers, with few hiccups.  

Entering Wednesday night’s game against the Orioles, the Yankees’ bullpen had a 2.80 ERA, lowest in the majors. The group ranked second in opponents’ batting average (.216), third in slugging (.324) and fourth in opponents’ OPS (.650).

Making those numbers more impressive?

Yankees’ relievers entered Wednesday having thrown 196 innings, second-most behind Tampa Bay’s 217.

“Fearlessness,” pitching coach Matt Blake said of what has stood out to him the most from the unit. “All of them can pitch in a lot of situations. A lot of them have come into traffic (men on base), they haven’t been afraid to challenge hitters with their stuff. I think we generally have guys that pitch to their strengths really well out of the pen, and they all know what their anchor pitch is that they lean on and they don’t stray too far from it.”

Kahnle, who started the season on the IL with right biceps tendonitis, could be back at some point during next week’s West Coast trip that sees the Yankees play three games in Seattle followed by three in Los Angeles against the Dodgers. Trivino suffered a forearm strain early in the spring that required season-ending Tommy John surgery, which the righthander underwent early last month.

Regardless, it has been seemingly one success story after another so far this season. Some of the performances have been fully expected – Michael King, Ron Marinaccio, Wandy Peralta and Clay Holmes were supposed to be good and for the most part have been – but there have been some unexpected standouts. Ian Hamilton, Albert Abreu, Jimmy Cordero and Ryan Weber would be examples of the latter.

Hamilton, who had a 1.23 ERA in 16 games, was placed on the IL during last week’s Toronto/Cincinnati trip with a right groin strain but the hard-throwing Abreu and decidedly not-hard-throwing Weber, whose fastball typically sits in the high 80s, immediately filled the void, with each of them performing well in high-leverage situations after Hamilton went down.

“Credit to them,” Boone said Sunday after his relievers put up a combined 1.34 ERA during the seven-game trip against the Blue Jays and Reds (an effort that included 14 1/3 scoreless innings in the three-game sweep of Cincinnati). “A number of guys have stepped up in whatever role we’ve put them in. We try to put them in positions where they can be successful, but ultimately it comes down to them going out there and executing.”

What Boone doesn’t have as of now is a designated closer. Holmes started the season in the role but had some April struggles and for the better part of a month the Yankees have had a variety of relievers – King, Peralta, Marinaccio, Holmes and even Weber – close games. Give pretty much every manager truth serum and they’ll tell you they prefer having one true closer and the Yankees eventually would like to reach that point as well. But, as of now, that is fairly low on the priority list, the reason being how effective Boone’s stable of relievers has been.

“Pretty much everyone down there’s been in a big spot, in a high-leverage situation,” Boone said. “More often than not, they’ve been able to deliver.”

By Erik Boland

erik.boland@newsday.comeboland11

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.