There’s no telling if this new-look Yankees bullpen is good enough — at least not yet.
After some promising signs, the combination of Jake Bird and Ryan Yarbrough had a nightmarish eighth inning in Sunday’s loss to Miami.
But in Tuesday’s 5-3 win over the A’s, four relievers — including Bird — combined to throw four scoreless innings after Cam Schlittler lasted just five.
Questions will continue until they prove otherwise, especially with so many arms pitching in roles they’re unaccustomed to.
Bird, Brent Headrick, Fernando Cruz and David Bednar got the Yankees to the finish line and helped them avoid losing consecutive games for the first time this season.
Asked before the game if the Yankees had the relievers to get the job done or whether they needed some outside help, Aaron Boone said, “I hope they’re there.”
He added, “I think they’ve all, to some degree, pitched really effectively.”
But Boone also acknowledged they’ve “had some rough games.”
The unit, which lost Devin Williams and Luke Weaver to the Mets in free agency in the offseason, is clearly a work in progress.
“I feel like we have some good answers,’’ Boone said.
And the process of having certain pitchers emerge for different jobs is ongoing, with certain pitchers having to “carve out roles and earn roles,’’ according to the manager.
It remains to be seen if Camilo Doval can be a reliable setup man or Bednar can close games at a high level in The Bronx.
Bird and Headrick have yet to have much success in the majors.
Tuesday, they were good enough to allow what had been a quiet Yankee lineup to get itself together to ensure that a four-run bottom of the eighth was enough to deliver a victory.
And while they kept the A’s off the board, they weren’t exactly perfect.
Bird, who took over for Schlittler to start the sixth — instead of coming into a higher-leverage spot as he did Sunday — gave up a leadoff single to Tyler Soderstrom before striking out Brent Rooker and getting Jacob Wilson to pop out.
Boone then went to the lefty Headrick, who walked Lawrence Butler before recovering to get Max Muncy swinging.
Headrick survived a leadoff walk to ex-Met Jeff McNeil in the seventh with a pair of strikeouts and some help from Cruz, who finished the inning.
And Cruz pitched around two walks in the top of the eighth — striking out Muncy to end the inning with two runners on — to keep the Yankees deficit to two runs.
Then the Yankees offense finally pounced on the A’s — and former Yankee Mark Leiter Jr. — in the bottom of the inning for four runs, highlighted by Amed Rosario’s three-run, go-ahead homer, to give Bednar a chance to close out the game.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
