Three takeaways from the Yankees-Tigers series
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams throws against the Detroit Tigers in the ninth inning during a baseball game, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, in Detroit. Credit: AP/Paul Sancya
DETROIT — Three takeaways from the Yankees series against the Tigers:
1. Devin Williams is still getting his feet under him.
The Yankees’ new closer, brought in over the winter in the Nestor Cortes deal with the Brewers, is off to a slow start, posting a 12.00 ERA in four outings — comprising three innings – in which he’s walked four and struck out five. He nearly flushed a 4-0 lead Wednesday before getting bailed out, with the tying run on second, by Mark Leiter Jr. “Still figuring stuff out,” Williams said afterward, several times saying he hasn’t yet gotten in a groove with his execution of pitches because of a sporadic workload, some of that caused by the four days he missed earlier in the season when he was on paternity leave. “I don’t think it’s far off,” Aaron Boone said of Williams. “I thought we saw some more velocity in there, too, when he needed it. So it’s just that next level of execution. He’ll get there.”
2. Ben Rice has taken his opportunity and run with it.
The 26-year-old Rice, a 12th-round pick of the Yankees in 2021 who made his big-league debut last season, made the club out of spring training as its DH mostly because the organization wasn’t able to secure a righty bat in the marketplace (a search that is on-going). But Rice, disappointed in how far he fell after an electric debut last June, which included a three-homer game vs. Boston on July 6, added some 10-15 pounds of muscle in the offseason and did nothing but hit in the spring and, so far, that has continued into the regular season as he’s hitting .306 with a 1.086 OPS. “I think coming into this year, he was a man on a mission,” Aaron Judge said. “He talked about a lot of things he wanted to improve on in the offseason and he came in here and did it all.”
3. Paul Goldschmidt seems to have something left.
The 37-year-old Goldschmidt, one of the game’s premiere first basemen of the last 15 years, had a career-worst year in 2024 with the Cardinals, his signing with the Yankees in January treated with a fair amount of skepticism. But the prideful Goldschmidt, a seven-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove winner and one-time MVP, said then he believed he could still play at “a high level” and has done that two weeks into the season. He’s hitting .383 with a .942 OPS and has been as advertised in the field, as well as quickly fitting into the clubhouse in a leadership role. “He’s such a pro,” Judge said. “What he’s brought to this team. Besides the performance on the field, just in the clubhouse. Always speaking up in meetings, sharing scouting reports, what he’s thinking . . . he’s been a huge piece for us and he’s really been kind of a catalyst for this offense.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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