Aaron Boone leaves door open for Yankees closer change as Devin Williams struggles

The rain gave the Yankees an extra day to let their Devin Williams dilemma marinate.

But a day after Williams blew a save in the ninth inning with his struggles continuing to mount, manager Aaron Boone continued to leave the door open for a change in the closer’s role just a month into the season.

“We’ll still talk through this,” Boone said Saturday morning, after the game against the Blue Jays was postponed by the threat of inclement weather, when asked if Williams was still his closer. “I haven’t seen Devin yet.

“We’ll try to do what’s best for the team and Devin. Knowing that, let’s get through this bump in the road and still expecting great things.”

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone (17) takes the ball from relief pitcher Devin Williams (38) during a pitching change during the ninth inning against the Toronto Blue Jays at Yankee Stadium.

In order to get there, it would not be surprising if the Yankees let Williams work in lower-leverage spots over his next few outings to get his command and confidence back on track. Because both seemed to be missing Friday night, when he gave up three runs to turn a 2-1, ninth-inning lead into a 4-2 loss. 

In the process, Williams’ ERA grew to 11.25 (10 earned runs in eight innings) across his first 10 appearances as a Yankee. 

With the fan base clamoring for Luke Weaver to replace him — “We want Weaver” chants came before Williams was booed off the mound at the Stadium — the two-time All-Star was at a loss for answers Friday after the game, saying simply, “Nothing is working right now.”

Asked if he was concerned about Williams’ confidence, Boone talked around it.

New York Yankees’ Devin Williams pitches during the ninth inning of a baseball game against the Toronto Blue Jays Friday, April 25, 2025, in New York.

“I start with the baseline of, he has all the equipment to be great at this,” Boone said. “So that’s a good place to start. This isn’t a guy that’s past his prime, anything like that. This is a guy that’s in the middle and had a track record of not just success, but dominance.

“So when you have that baseline, there’s always a way out and there’s always a way to get there. So we’ll continue to lean into that and try to help him unlock it. I feel like once he gets on a roll, he will.”

There is recent precedence for how the Yankees might handle this. It happened late last year when Clay Holmes was struggling, with Boone first saying that the Yankees would get “creative” to close out games before Weaver got the first chance and ran with it into the playoffs.

With that experience under his belt and a sharp start to this season — 13 innings without being scored upon — Weaver would be the obvious replacement for Williams, even if the Yankees want to call it a short-term solution. Fernando Cruz and Mark Leiter Jr. have also picked up saves through the first month of this season.

“Look, I got a ton of confidence in a lot of guys down there right now, Weave certainly being at the top of that list,” Boone said. “We’ll get through this and work through this and do what’s best for the club.”

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone (17) walks on the field during a pitching change in the sixth inning against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field.

What would ultimately be best for the Yankees is if Williams is able to rediscover the form that allowed him to pitch to a 1.70 ERA (42 earned runs in 222 innings) with 361 strikeouts from 2020-24 with the Brewers. He did so with a changeup that was so unhittable it earned the nickname “The Airbender,” but this year it has been much less superhuman. Opponents are batting 6-for-22 (.273) against it and have whiffed at it just 22 percent of the time — down from 48.8 percent in 2024, 43.2 in 2023, 43.9 in 2022, 47.2 in 2021 and 61.1 in 2020.

That lack of swing-and-miss led Williams to recently wonder whether he was throwing the changeup too much. Friday, he only threw it for four of his 12 pitches, but he had trouble locating his fastball then threw a changeup down the middle that Alejandro Kirk belted for the go-ahead, two-run double.

“He’s been one of the dominant closers in the league,” Boone said when asked about the case to keep Williams as his closer. “I know the results haven’t been great yet. A lot of the stuff is still there, the profile of the changeup is still there. Obviously hitters have had success [against it]. He hasn’t gotten swung and miss. He’s been behind in the count a little bit. 

“Once he starts flipping that and starts getting some count leverage, I expect him to go back to being the dominant closer he’s been.”