Yankees aren't surprised by reliever Clay Holmes' success since his demotion

CLEVELAND – The Yankees bullpen has been the collective star of their impressive postseason run to this point, and no reliever has shone brighter than Clay Holmes.

Yes, the same Holmes booed throughout the second half as his blown save total mushroomed and who was eventually replaced at closer by Luke Weaver.

And while Holmes’ performance six game into these playoffs – the righthander hasn’t allowed a run in six appearances while giving up just three hits and striking out five – perhaps has caught some by surprise, that isn’t the case in his clubhouse.

In fact, around the time Holmes was demoted in early September, it was predicted.

“Me and Trevi (backup catcher Jose Trevino) talked about it,” Nestor Cortes said Tuesday after the Yankees beat the Guardians, 6-3, to take a 2-0 lead in the American League Championship Series. “We were saying, everybody’s hating on Clay, not in here, but the fans and there was just a lot of noise around his name. But (we said) he’s going to come up big for us in moment we need, and that’s exactly what he’s done.”

Holmes, who led the majors this season with 13 blown saves, started his turnaround shortly after being replaced by Weaver, who has been dominant in the role, including during the postseason.

Holmes did not allow a run – and allowed just two hits – over his final five games of the regular season. He has carried that momentum into the playoffs.

Among the keys to that has been Holmes refocusing on what has always been his best pitch – the sinker – rather than continuing to liberally mix in his slider.

“He got slider-happy,” one rival AL scout assigned to the Yankees said. “Seemed like in a lot of those (blown saves), he was getting beat on something other than his best pitch.”

Holmes would not put it quite in those terms, though he did say he decided to get back to his bread-and-butter pitch.

“When it’s good, I can throw it to both sides of the plate, and they’re not all the same sinker,” said Holmes, who in addition to still throwing the slider has also occasionally mixed in a four-seam fastball. “And they’re not all the same sinker. I know how to make it sink, there’s ones that run, it just has that natural movement and unpredictableness, but yet I have control over it. Right now, I feel like I can get it to both sides of the plate. I’m confident in it. I feel like it’s in a good spot.”

It is important to note that, despite the blown saves, Holmes, a free agent after the season, mostly threw the ball well. Appearing in 67 games, Holmes posted a more than respectable 3.14 ERA and saved 30 games. He struck out 68 and walked 22 in 68 innings.

“I never felt like he was far off,” Aaron Boone said on a Zoom call Wednesday. “There was a stretch where he got hit hard a couple times and lost some saves, but he never really was erratic with his command and the stuff was all there. And knowing the kind of person he is and knowing how tough he is mentally, like, I knew he'd be able to get through it.”

Holmes, generally low-key with an under-the-radar sense of humor, is immensely popular among his teammates, the case pretty much from the time the Yankees acquired him from the Pirates before the 2021 trade deadline for minor-league infielders Diego Castillo and Hoy Park. That is because of his unflappability on the mound, but also a team-first mentality, never displayed more than when he was demoted in favor of Weaver.

“Clay is first and foremost one of the better dudes I've been around,” said Weaver, who was acquired late last season and who, in that time, has become close with Holmes. “This guy cares a lot.”

Cortes referenced the unflappability.

“If there was ever a person I thought that was going to get out of that, it was going to be him,” Cortes said. “Because the way he responded after a blown save, you didn’t know if he blew a save or saved the game. So I thought that demeanor showed a lot of who he is as a player, who he is on a person. I feel like everybody in this clubhouse knew how he carried himself, and there was no doubt in our minds he was going to be able to turn it around and that’s exactly what he did.”