One adage in baseball is “the ball will always find you.”
Usually, that’s saved for fielders coming into a game for the first time but on Friday night in Cleveland, it applied to Yankees reliever Mark Leiter Jr.
The right-hander was acquired from the Cubs at the trade deadline this season as the Yankees’ biggest move to shore up the bullpen. Unfortunately for him, an up-and-down last few months of the year gave manager Aaron Boone and the organization the tough decision to leave Leiter off the ALDS and ALCS rosters.
But, due to Ian Hamilton‘s injury, Leiter was activated for Game 4 and will be on the team for the rest of the series. So naturally, the 33-year-old was asked to get some of the biggest outs of the night.
After Clay Holmes allowed three runs in the seventh inning, Leiter was asked to preserve a 6-5 lead with runners on first and second and one out.
“Still had a long way to go to the finish line and frankly I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there,” Boone explained. “I know [Leiter’s] going to have to go through a run of lefties if he’s efficient. He did a great job. Managed contact, other than Naylor getting the leadoff double, man, I thought he was really good.”
The longtime Yankees skipper said he wasn’t sure Jhonkensy Noel, the hero of Game 3, was going to pinch-hit to face Leiter in that situation. But Boone trusted Leiter, who rewarded his manager by getting Noel to fly out and Andres Gimenez to strike out to get out of the inning with the lead.
Leiter allowed the tying run to score in the eighth after a soft grounder by David Fry was botched by both the right-hander and Anthony Rizzo at first base. Despite the hiccup, Leiter did not give up anymore and gave the Yankees five huge outs. And it allowed the offense to take the lead in the ninth and ultimately win, 8-6.
“It’s unreal. That’s a really tough spot to be in and thrown out to. He was ready for the challenge,” Giancarlo Stanton said of Leiter’s performance. “I could see it in his prep and his eyes. Very similar to when he first got traded here. He got here and second or third inning he was thrown into the fire and got it done. He’ll be big for us.”
Friday was Leiter’s first appearance in an MLB game since Sept. 29, almost three weeks ago. And yet he showed why the Yankees coveted him at the trade deadline.
Leiter said he kept himself ready in that time by doing his mound work and working on things he “got away from” in the regular season during his bullpens and live BP. But Boone made sure to tell the right-hander that he needed to be ready to pick, and the five-year reliever obliged.
“Boonie kept telling me to be ready for anything and that I was going to be used to get big outs,” he said after the game. “That’s the way it fell. Just tried to stay ready and stay sharp, and when my name was called, go out there and do my job.”
“There’s a case to be made for him to be [on the postseason roster] both these times. The Last guy left off,” Boone said of the decision to leave Leiter off the ALCS roster. “He’s been through a lot this year. Had a great year with the Cubs, gets traded at the deadline, big piece for us. Up and down for us, had some success, some struggles then gets left off… The thing I said before the game is ‘You might find yourself in the biggest spot in this game’ and he was ready for it and he delivered.”
With the Yankees bullpen worn out, Leiter provided some much-needed length from a fresh arm. He’ll be used again, if not in this series, then in the World Series. the Yankees will have to win one more game before then, and their first chance comes Saturday in Game 5.
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