Yankees News: Dellin Betances Continues to Struggle

All the negative energy surrounding New York Yankees reliever Dellin Betances has followed him from Tampa, Fl. to the Bronx.

After a less than stellar spring training, the young right-hander’s struggles continued in the Yankees firs win of the season against the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday night.

Skipper Joe Girardi handed the ball off to Betances in the eight inning to face the heart of the Blue Jays lineup in Russell Martin, Jose Bautista and Edwin Encarnacion and to protect a one-run deficit. Betances should have fared well, as the three aforementioned players all bat from the right side of the plate, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

It took 31 pitches for the young reliever to get out of the inning, in which he had poor control of his fastball, surrendered two walks, one hit and an unearned run on a Brian McCann throwing error, leaving the Yankees down 3-1.

Fortunately the team was able to muster up some runs in their half of the inning, which eventually earned Betances a win, but that was long after Betances nearly crumbled. He started his frame off by getting ex-Yankee catcher Russell Martin to ground out, but after that is where things went south. He walked Bautista and gave up a one out single to Encarnacion right after.

Then, with a 1-0 count to Josh Donaldson, catcher Brian McCann made a rookie mistake. He attempted to pick-off Encarnacion at first base in a one-run game, but ended up short-hopping his throw, sending the ball into right field and allowing Bautista to score easily from third base.

Betances picked up McCann after that, ending the inning on two weak hit rollers back to the mound, but the damage was done, and he earned an overall grade of an F in his first appearance of the season.

After a dominating rookie season when he was locked in as David Robertson‘s set-up man and earning an All-Star appearance, this isn’t the same Dellin Betances that we all witnessed in 2014.

The one positive is that after the excess reports out of spring training that his velocity was down, Betances brushed through 95 mph several times, and even hit 97 mph on one pitch.

Interestingly enough, his counterpart Andrew Miller was called upon in the ninth to make his pinstripes debut, and boy did the southpaw impress. He hurled 11 pitches in a 1-2-3 inning, which included a strikeout to Blue Jay’s rookie Devon Travis, earning the southpaw his first save as a New York Yankee and the second of his career.

It’ll be interesting to see where the Yankees bullpen goes from here.

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