Yankees remove Devin Williams from closer role ‘for right now’ as reliever’s struggles continue

The New York Yankees have taken Devin Williams out of the ninth inning. Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced Sunday that Williams has been removed as closer following his latest poor showing in which he gave up three earned runs Friday.

“For right now, I’m going to take him out of that role,” said Boone (via The Athletic).

Williams, acquired from the Milwaukee Brewers over the offseason, turned in his worst effort of the year on Friday. He entered to a one-run read to begin the ninth inning, but promptly surrendered three runs on two hits and a hit batsman. Williams was subsequently charged with his first blown save, his second loss, and his fourth “meltdown.” (The meltdown is a FanGraphs-tracked statistic that judges relievers based on their Win Probability Added.)

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Overall, Williams is now sporting an 11.25 ERA (37 ERA+) and a 1.14 strikeout-to-walk ratio through his first 10 appearances. 

“We’ll see,” manager Aaron Boone told reporters on Friday about potentially using Williams in lower-leverage situations until he can right the ship. “We’ll kind of talk through that stuff. This is raw right now. We want to do everything we can to get him right because we know how good he is and how valuable he’s going to be for us.”

While Boone did not name a full-time replacement, he said right-hander Luke Weaver will get “a lot” of opportunities for ninth-inning duties. Whereas Williams has scuffled to begin the season, Weaver has excelled by stringing together 13 consecutive scoreless innings.

Even with Williams’ early season woes, the Yankees enter Sunday with a 15-11 record on the year. That puts them in first place in the American League East with a 1.5-game lead over the Boston Red Sox (-400 to make the playoffs, per DraftKings).