Devin Williams is Brian Cashman's new rock bottom after Yankees' rain-soaked disaster

The rain. It's always the rain. This is a statistically unprovable assertion, but it certainly feels as if no team has been forced to play through active rain storms over the past decade more often than the New York Yankees. Certainly no team has been as adversely affected by it.

No Yankees opponent seems to have as much trouble with the mud on the mound. No Yankees opponent seems to struggle with the basic tenets of their grip. No Yankees opponent wakes out of a two-hour rain delay slumber, asked to resume play at 11:47 PM for no apparent reason, unable to compose themselves and return to game shape at the snap of a finger.

This season, the Yankees have already been asked to complete five innings in a driving downpour, risking Yoendrys Gómez's health just so the umpiring crew can get a pat on the head from Rob Manfred for delivering an official game (and a Yankees loss, of course) in a monsoon. On Monday night, they were asked to navigate five more innings against a visiting San Diego team — one that should've been more ill-equipped than the Yankees for bad weather, but somehow wasn't. They got through five and more, overcoming a pre-first pitch delay and another storm in the bottom of the fourth.

But once MLB got the official game they desired — which would've been a 2-0 Yankees victory — they instead decided, in this particular instance, that it wasn't enough. The Yankees extended the lead to three. The skies opened once again. And, as the conditions worsened, Aaron Boone looked at his stable of relievers, as well as the man on the mound who'd been summoned to record the final out of the seventh inning, and did so on two pitches. And he said, "Get me my worst idea."

Williams, in part, blamed the conditions of the mound for entering on Monday night in a 3-0 game, retiring the first batter, then walking light-hitting Tyler Wade, allowing a single to dribbler-creating outfielder Brandon Lockridge, and then walking Luis Arraez, a kingly slap hitter who's physically repulsed by walks. The conditions of the mound were, more than likely, below par. Here is a list of pitchers who utilized the same mound to its intended effect: Tim Hill, Ryan Bergert, Jeremiah Estrada, and Robert Suarez. Three of those four, of course, make their homes in sunny San Diego, but found no issue.

It's no surprise, of course, that Brian Cashman pushed his chips in, once again, for the particular pitcher who is attempting to work his way back from exile, re-entered the circle of trust shockingly quickly, and made a mound mess once again when the conditions were less than ideal. Cashman saw Williams' playoff exit at the hands of Pete Alonso last fall, when the changeup didn't fool anyone and the bright lights of ... Milwaukee (?) lit a fire under the opposition instead.

And he said, "Yes. That will be my next masterpiece. I'll send away someone who'd be starting at two different infield positions in early May in order to add an elite reliever on the verge of a crisis of confidence."

Yankees' Devin Williams is Brian Cashman's worst All-Star-turned-unusable acquisition

Remove your preconceived notions about Brian Cashman as a GM and the totality of his tenure. He's well-respected for a reason. He earned it ... at some point. For someone with this much pedigree, it is astounding how many missteps he's engineered over the past five years. Sometimes, it was difficult to foresee that the All-Stars he added would bring swiftly-shaken confidence to the Bronx: who knew about Sonny Gray?

Other times, however, it was shockingly easy to predict. Frankie Montas went down with an unresolved shoulder injury in June, and was a Yankee by July. To this day, something tells us those two realities were not entirely unrelated; the price on an All-Star dropped, and Cashman took a chance to save capital. It failed.

Josh Donaldson was a clubhouse terror and an enemy of the Yankees' ace when he arrived. At least he brought elite batted-ball metrics the summer before he showed up. There was something to dream on. Unfortunately, by the time he suited up in pinstripes, he couldn't hit a pop fly over the aging curve.

Joey Gallo represented the biggest swing available on the trade market, at the time of his acquisition, but the Yankees' lineup was already too swing-and-miss prone without him. 15 degrees of variance in the wrong direction from Gallo, and the whole house of cards that was the 2021 season was destined to fall apart. It did. Gallo is a pitcher now.

Somehow, Williams has had the swiftest fall of all — though, again, the start of his downfall was broadcast on national television last season. The Mets were involved. It was all over the local markets. Would've been tough for Cashman to miss it.

Monday night was on Boone, who signaled for the reliever in the most tenuous mental state in the most important moment of the game (and no, Luke Weaver is not completely absolved for faltering, too, though he's only done it once this year). It's on Williams, whose fastball dipped below 92 as he missed the zone four consecutive times to Arraez, who was ready to swing out of his shoes at anything close.

But mostly, it's on Cashman for somehow uncovering his fastest fall from grace yet, as the Yankees proceeded to lose their fifth game of the first 35 in which they led in the eighth. Williams has been directly responsible for three of those, a rate of failure eclipsed only by Cashman when it's time to cash in his prospect chips for a fading star.