NEW YORK (AP) — Clay Holmes is rediscovering his sinker at a pivotal time for the New York Yankees.
A little over a month since being removed from his closer’s role, Holmes has allowed two runs over his past 14 outings and the right-hander’s five spotless innings helped the Yankees eliminate the Kansas City Royals in their AL Division Series.
Next up is the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Championship Series.
Holmes was 3-5 with a 3.14 ERA and 30 saves in 67 appearances. He led the majors with 13 blown saves and was taken out of the closer’s spot after allowing a game-ending grand slam to Texas rookie Wyatt Langford on Sept. 3.
He blew two more saves on Sept. 11 and 18 against Kansas City and Seattle respectively but also had eight other scoreless outings to help the Yankees get home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs.
“I think for me, my confidence, my identity, who I am, what I can do is not really tied in so much to some title that is given to me,” Holmes said Saturday during a video conference as the Yankees worked out.
The Yankees outscored the Royals 14-12 in their playoff matchup and their relievers combined on 15 2/3 scoreless innings. It was the third-most scoreless innings by a team’s relievers in postseason history behind Minnesota’s 18 1/3 innings in the 1991 ALCS against Toronto and the 17 thrown by the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Cubs in the 2017 NLCS.
“It’s fun,” Holmes said. “Obviously we got a good group down there. We have a lot of fun. We’re pretty tight knit. We’re all rooting for each other. To see that happen was cool. I think that’s what we’re capable of and that’s what we know we can do."
Holmes appeared in each game of a series where every game was decided by two runs or less and earned the win in the series opener. In Game 3, Holmes relieved Clarke Schmidt and stranded two runners in the fifth and pitched 1 1/3 innings. In the clincher, he pitched a 1-2-3 eighth before closer Luke Weaver earned his third save of the series.
“What I continue to say even when he went through some tough stretches there, we’re looking at a really, really good pitcher and that’s showing up right now,” manager Aaron Boone said.
Holmes threw his sinker 56.3% of the time in the regular season, down from 69.5% in 2023. In the final month, he threw the pitch 67.1% of the time and allowed a .200 average.
Against Kansas City 41 of his 58 pitches were sinkers and he attributed the recent success to an improved grip.
“More times than not when I’m at my best my sinker’s really good,” Holmes said. “I think I made it a point to figure that out. I started throwing it more and I knew I had to get back to that.”
Boone said the Yankees will decide on their Game 1 starter on Sunday but it will not be rookie Luis Gil.
Carlos Rodón, who would have started Game 5 of the ALDS Saturday, is a candidate and Boone said Gerrit Cole is likely for Game 2 against Cleveland.
Gil, who did not pitch in the ALDS, will start later in the series. Gil was 15-7 with a 3.50 ERA in 29 starts after missing last season recovering from Tommy John surgery on his elbow.
Gil, who last pitched Sept. 28 against Pittsburgh, will pitch a simulated game Sunday.
The Yankees had 11 pitchers on their ALDS roster and Boone said at least one pitcher will be added for the ALCS.
Anthony Rizzo’s availability for the ALCS remains uncertain two weeks after the first baseman fractured two fingers on his right hand while getting hit by a pitch against Pittsburgh.
Boone said Rizzo is making progress but mostly with treatments and little baseball activities. The Yankees will make a decision on Rizzo’s status Monday shortly before submitting their roster.
In the ALDS, utility players Oswaldo Cabrera and Jon Berti split time at first base. The duo combined for 27 putouts and Berti started a key double play in the sixth inning in Game 4.
“Certainly liked what I saw from Cabby and Berti in that first series,” Boone said. “Really playing a nice role for us.”
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New York Yankees relief pitcher Clay Holmes throws during the eighth inning in Game 4 of an American League Division baseball playoff series against the Kansas City Royals Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann)
BEIRUT (AP) — Palestinians in northern Gaza described heavy Israeli bombardment Saturday in the hours after airstrikes killed at least 22 people, as Israel warned people there and in southern Lebanon to get out of the way of offensives against the Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.
In Lebanon, the U.N. peacekeeping force said its headquarters in Naqoura was hit again, with a peacekeeper struck by gunfire late Friday and in stable condition. It wasn’t clear who fired. It occurred a day after Israel’s military fired on the headquarters for a second straight day. Israel, which has warned peacekeepers to leave their positions, didn’t immediately respond to questions.
Hunger warnings emerged again in northern Gaza as residents said they hadn't received aid since the beginning of the month. The U.N. World Food Program said no food aid had entered the north since Oct. 1. An estimated 400,000 people remain there.
Israel’s military renewed its offensive in northern Gaza almost a week ago while escalating its air and ground campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Amid Israel's war with Hezbollah, a top U.N. official, Carl Skau, told The Associated Press he's concerned that Lebanon’s ports and airport might be taken out of service. More than 1 million people have been displaced.
Israel’s military said Hezbollah fired more than 300 projectiles over Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn day on the Jewish calendar. The military also said it killed 50 militants in Lebanon. Claims on either side couldn’t be verified.
Israeli airstrikes on Saturday hit multiple areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. Nine were killed in Maisra village in the northeast. Four were killed in an apartment building on the edge of Barja south of Beirut. Rayak and Tal Chiha hospitals in the Bekaa Valley were damaged. In Nabatieh, eight people were wounded.
The total toll in Lebanon over the past year of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is now 2,255 killed, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. More than 1,400 people have been killed since mid-September. It isn't clear how many were fighters.
“We will keep standing with the Lebanese people during these difficult circumstances and also with the Palestinian people,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, said Saturday while touring the scene of an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.
In northern Gaza, residents told the AP many were trapped in their homes and shelters with dwindling supplies while seeing bodies uncollected in the streets as the bombing hampered emergency responders.
Those who rushed to the scene of the latest deadly airstrikes in the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya found a hole 20 meters (65 feet) deep where a home once stood.
At least 20 bodies were recovered while others likely were under rubble, emergency service officials said.
Elsewhere in Jabaliya, a strike on a home killed two brothers and wounded a woman and newborn baby, the officials said. An afternoon strike on a home killed at least four people, including a woman, said Fares Abu Hamza, an official with the emergency service.
Israel’s military said it killed more than 20 militants in the Jabaliya area over the past day.
Military spokesperson Avichay Adraee told people in parts of Jabaliya and Gaza City to evacuate south to an Israeli-designated humanitarian zone as Israel plans to use great force “and will continue to do so for a long time.”
Israel has repeatedly returned to parts of Gaza as Hamas and other militants regroup. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced around 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, often multiple times.
Once again, some families moved south on foot, in donkey carts or crowded in vehicles that navigated piles of rubble. Others refused to go.
“It’s like the first days of the war,” said a Jabaliya resident, Ahmed Abu Goneim. “The occupation is doing everything to uproot us. But we will not leave.”
The 24-year-old said Israeli warplanes and drones struck many neighboring houses in the past week. He counted 15 relatives and neighbors, including four women and five children as young as 3, killed in neighboring homes. He said that there were dead in the streets.
Hamza Sharif, who stays with his family in a school-turned-shelter in Jabaliya, described “constant bombings day and night.”
He said the shelter hasn't received aid since the beginning of the month and that families “will run out of supplies very soon.”
The World Food Program said it was unclear how long the limited food supplies it distributed in northern Gaza earlier will last.
The U.N.’s independent investigator on the right to food last month accused Israel of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians, which Israel has denied.
Israel's offensive in Gaza started after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, when militants stormed into Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250 others.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who don't specify between combatants and civilians. Gaza’s Health Ministry said that hospitals had received the bodies of 49 people killed over the past 24 hours.
Samy Magdy reported from Cairo. Jack Jeffery in Jerusalem, and Sam Metz in Rabat, Morocco, contributed to this report.
Find more of AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war.
Lebanese army soldiers stand guard on a destroyed building hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Barja village, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Lebanese army soldiers walk by destroyed cars at the site where an Israeli airstrike hit a building, in Barja village, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Lebanese army soldiers deploy around a destroyed building hit by an Israeli airstrike, in Barja village, south of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)
Cyclists ride on a car-free highway during the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf waves to residents as visit the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike, in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents of a building damaged in an Israeli airstrike return to collect their family's belongings at the site of Thursday's Israeli airstrike in Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Residents sit on the roof of a building and have dinner as Dahiyeh suburb, background, remains in darkness after Israeli airstrikes, Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
