Yankees: Dellin Betances continues to be wildly inconsistent

While the Yankees offense continues to pummel the Twins, Dellin Betances continues to be one of the most hit or miss relievers in baseball. With injuries piling up throughout the bullpen, the Yankees really need to get Betances right.

Coming into the season the biggest question mark in the Yankees bullpen was Betances. Betances was coming off his fourth straight season making the All-Star team but down the stretch and into the playoffs he was terribly wild and lost the trust of former skipper Joe Girardi.

This year Betances was hoping to regain some of that trust from new manager Aaron Boone along with his old role as the main set-up man for Aroldis Chapman. Unfortunately for Dellin, those hopes have taken a big hit in the month of April as he’s posted an ERA of 6.00 in 9 innings. Betances has been all over the place in the early going and last night his inability to find the strike zone reared its ugly head.

In a 5-1 game, Betances came on in the seventh to try to preserve the Yankee lead and post his third straight scoreless outing. He quickly walked the first batter he faced and then proceeded to throw a ball into foul territory after airmailing a pickoff throw to first base. Betances’s struggles throwing to bases have been well-documented in recent years and teams around the league have certainly taken note of that.

After a single and another walk, Betances was removed from the game and booed off the mound by the Yankee Stadium faithful.

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The Yankees bullpen has bounced back somewhat after a surprisingly slow start to the season, but right now they really need Betances to be someone they can rely on to get big outs. They don’t need him to be the shutdown eighth-inning guy like he used to be, but they need him to be much more consistent.

With both Tommy Kahnle and Adam Warren sidelined for the next couple of weeks with injuries the Yankees are short on relievers they can truly trust. Not that either of them was off to a great start to their season, but right now the only arms Aaron Boone has faith in are Chad Green, David Robertson, and Aroldis Chapman. Those three have been great of late, but outside of them, the Yankee pen is a collection of inexperienced guys who have yet to make much of an impact at the big league level.

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That’s why they need Betances to step up as they get set to embark on a long stretch of games against American League contenders. The Yankee can get away with only using Green, Robertson, and Chapman to close out games on most nights, but with no off day for the next 12 games, they will need somebody else in their pen to get big outs late in games. Betances needs to be that guy.