Put Clay Holmes at the top of the Yankees’ mounting concerns.
At a time when everything is going wrong, the Yankees closer was reminded that he was part of the problem when he missed the save in a 5-3, 10-inning loss to the Red Sox in the series opener on Friday in the Bronx.
Holmes was one strike away from getting the third out in a never-ending inning.
The right-hander entered the game with a two-run lead and managed to strike out the first two batters he faced in the top of the ninth, but the results didn’t come right away.
Rafael Devers tapped out on the 10th pitch of his at-bat, but was out after four foul pitches, and it took five pitches to get Connor Wong’s grounder out.
After former Mets pitcher Dominic Smith hit a ball to center field on the fourth pitch of his at-bat, the Red Sox were buoyed and Holmes’ arm was tired.
“Even when he was striking out batters, he was giving him a hard time,” manager Aaron Boone said. “And he was pampered, pampered, pampered.”
Holmes took a 2-0 lead against Masanao Yoshida and then threw three consecutive pitches.
Yoshida hung in there at bat, fouling off two pitches, but the eighth pitch (the 27th thrown by Holmes) was a sinker down the middle of the plate.
Yoshida sent a powerful 405-foot two-run home run to the right, sending Yankee Stadium into a frenzy.
“I felt like I pitched well, I pitched well,” said Holmes, who missed his fifth save of the year. “They did a good job of pitching it foul. I thought I pitched pretty well.”
“It just added up. And then obviously the sinker to Yoshida, he probably saw one too many there.”
Holmes hasn’t had many chances to win games with the rest of his team struggling, but he’s also struggled to perform himself.
The normally reliable tail-end pitcher has allowed nine runs (eight earned) in his past 6 2/3 innings, improving his ERA from 1.23 to 3.00 in eight starts.
Even though the Yankees’ relief pitchers have been strong this season, there have been questions about whether they have enough pitchers capable of striking out batters.
Holmes’ pitches are powerful, but mostly soft contact doesn’t lead to strikeouts, and he just couldn’t get Boston’s hitters to batter him.
“It hurt tonight,” Boone said.
