Yankees suffer Angel Chivilli injury again after foolish sacrifice, replace him with ex-Twin

The New York Yankees' middle-innings bullpen plight would be hilarious if it didn't also suck tremendously and wasn't threatening to derail an excellent 'pen season on the back end. For months, the men handling the sixth inning have gone down like Spinal Tap drummers, either exploding or disappearing into the Mariana Trench the second they began to show some replicable skill.

Now, it'll be Will Warren, Ryan Weathers, and Clarke Schmidt to the rescue (potentially) as Fernando Cruz fades and leaves Paul Blackburn, Brent Headrick, and David Bednar all alone in tight games. The day of the trade deadline, the Yankees used their emergent "sixth inning specialist" Angel Chivilli, the only other man who they'd come to trust in tight games, to get out of a mess started by Ryan Yarbrough. Instead of escaping, he allowed three home runs and was pushed near 40 pitches, demoted the next day.

Kervin Castro, the portly right-hander, slotted directly into his place without blinking ... until he went down with right elbow neuritis this week, giving Bradley Hanner a shot at his MLB debut (not yet!).

And now Chivilli, demoted to Scranton, has hit the Injured List for the second time this season (the first was a shoulder issue). If he never comes back, he's still proven to be quite valuable this year, even if it cost TJ Rumfield; outside of his 2 1/3 innings to start the year and his final mess, he threw 13 1/3 frames with two runs (none earned) allowed, striking out 13. That got the Yankees through a very rough patch. Wish we still had that dude.

He's been replaced on the Triple-A roster by Justin Topa, someone no one knew we had until just now.

So ... who is Yankees' new reliever Justin Topa?

What's, uh, Topa's deal? He does not appear to be on a heater. His ground ball rate (57.4%) with the Twins this season technically indicates competence, but his 8.05 ERA in 19 frames does not. He has a 4.27 ERA in 172 total games, but was released by the Royals - the ROYALS - earlier this week from their Triple-A Omaha club. He's struggled to latch on or find any sort of rhythm in 2026, and he doesn't have much time left. Simply put, this is not the type of DFA'd guy we had in mind.

Chivilli and Castro were in a league of their own in the middle innings for the shortest spurt possible. Their contributions won't be forgotten - but hopefully, someday, they'll be replaced.

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