NEW YORK — “We’ll see. I mean, we’ll kind of talk through that stuff.”
That was Aaron Boone issuing the Michael Corleone kiss of death to Devin Williams’ reign as Yankees’ closer.
Only a few minutes had passed since Williams collapsed in the ninth inning against the Blue Jays. He blew the save in the Yankees’ appalling 4-2 loss, enraging the Stadium’s sellout crowd.
“We want Weaver!” was the chant that thundered from the upper deck. Williams failed to retire any of the three batters he faced, fueling support for Weaver, as in Luke, who hasn’t surrendered a run this year.
The fans’ opinion of Williams was clear – “go back to Milwaukee!” was one of the more printable epithets - but the key question was whether Boone himself was ready to make the switch to Weaver.
The answer came not in what Boone said during the post-game press conference, but what he didn’t say.
The manager deliberately side-stepped a vote of confidence for Williams. Remember, this is the same Mr. Nice Guy who stuck with the fading DJ LeMahieu. He propped up Gary Sanchez and Joey Gallo. But even Boone’s patience has its limits.
We’ll see, was the most he would say about Williams. YES viewers who’ve grown accustomed to Boone’s glossy appraisals, sat up in front of their flat screens.
Boone’s hints couldn’t have been any clearer: Williams is out.
Whether it’s for the short or long term is uncertain. But until the right-hander regains his command of the strike zone, the trade for the National League’s best closer ranks as a flop.
Thing is, no one in the Yankees’ front office saw this disaster coming. There were no red flags about Williams’ make-up or the effectiveness of his changeup.
He griped about the club’s facial hair policy in spring training, and was influential in getting Hal Steinbrenner to relax the rules. But Williams did so without picking a fight. The Yankees figured if having a beard made the new closer comfortable, why not?
Except nothing has gone as planned. Williams’ change-up is fooling no one. One scout I spoke to wondered if Williams is tipping.
After all, Williams has never fully recovered from the walk-off home run he surrendered to Pete Alonso in the Wild Card Series last year. The change-up Williams cherishes was blasted over the wall in right-center, as the Mets ended the Brewers’ season.
“I have no idea how (Alonso) hit that pitch,” Williams said in spring training. “No one’s ever hit a home run off my change-up.”
Williams was no less shaken on Friday, after lasting just three batters. George Springer singled, Andres Gimenez was hit on the knee by an errant fastball before Alejandro Kirk crushed a two-run double over Trent Grisham’s head in dead center.
That was Williams’ final pitch of the night. It was also the Yankees’ last hope of a storybook 2-1 win. They’d gone ahead in the bottom of the eighth with a rally powered by the four Yankees who were under .200.
Cody Bellinger, Jazz Chisholm, Anthony Volpe and Austin Wells chipped in with, in sequential order, a bloop double to shallow right, a walk, a hit by pitch and a sac fly.
It wasn’t as theatrical as a 400-foot home run from you-know-who. But the Yankees were out to prove the bottom of the order isn’t necessarily a wasteland.
In fact, the Stadium’s savages were in a good mood going into the ninth inning. The Jays hadn’t put up much resistance all night – they never laid a finger on Carlos Carrasco over five innings – which was just the softening up Williams needed.
Instead Boone and his coaches are wondering what to do with the deposed closer. Limit Williams to the lowest-possible leverage situations in the sixth and maybe the seventh innings?
Or have him flip-slop with Weaver, trading places in the eighth and ninth innings?
The answer depends on a) fixing Williams’ mechanics, which are desperately in need of a tune-up and b) whether Williams has been traumatized by the fans’ harsh treatment.
If there was one takeaway from Williams’ post-game interview, it’s that he looks lost. Clearly, he never pitched in front of tough, impatient fans in Milwaukee.
Now the Yankees’ hierarchy has to be wondering if Williams has the guts to make it in the Bronx. His confidence appears shot.
“I wish there was an easy answer, but I’m not really sure,” Williams said quietly in response to a question about his mechanics.
“You know, it’s not a good feeling to not be able to get the job done for the team. They put us in a great position to win, and I couldn’t get it done.”
Chisholm, for one, did his best to support Williams.
“I know what he’s got. I know what he has,” Chisholm said. “I’ve faced him (in the National League), I’ve talked to him a lot over the years….I told him, ‘we all believe in you. We all got your back. Don’t worry about it.’”
Chisholm is being a good teammate. But that endorsement doesn’t jibe with today’s hard truth. Williams, the closer who the Yankees thought was even better than Weaver, is not that same man in 2025.
We’re about to learn if GM Brian Cashman should’ve stuck with Weaver all along. Something tells me that would’ve been the right move.
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Bob Klapisch may be reached at bklapisch@njadvancemedia.com.
