DUNEDIN, Florida – Another day, another short exit from a Yankees starter.
Corey Kluber lasted just four innings in Wednesday’s 5-4 loss to the Blue Jays at TD Ballpark.
He allowed three runs – and two homers – and needed 77 pitches to get through the exit.
While Kluber and manager Aaron Boone still seemed encouraged by the right performance, his early exit forced the Yankees to go to Jonathan Loaisiga to start the fifth and demand more length from an already taxed pen.
“I thought his stuff was fine,” Boone said of the 35-year-old Kluber, who signed for $ 11 million a year after missing most of the past two seasons with a fractured forearm and then a shoulder strain. “I feel like he’s getting closer to where he needs to be.”
He threw only 10¹ / ₃ innings over three starts and went seven.
Kluber called the exit “a step in the right direction.”
“I’m just as frustrated as everyone else with the results on the dashboard, so to speak, but I can say that things are going in the right direction,” Kluber said.
The veteran said that “his things are getting better, the location is getting better and the amount of misses during a game is getting smaller. The mistakes I make, I pay for. I don’t expect to get away with them. ”
He allowed several baserunners in each half before being eliminated before the fifth.
“You can only play as long as they let you,” Kluber said.
Asked if he made a case to stay in the game after the fourth, Kluber said: “I don’t think that’s my position. I felt that my job was to play as much as possible and when they go to the pen, this is the end. I don’t think it’s my position to argue. “
Greater efficiency would help, as a first half of 23 steps put Kluber in a bad place.
“I think Corey, at best, is movement and precision,” Boone said. “He has to get over the final hump.”
After the game, the Yankees chose the reliever Albert Abreu on the alternative site.
“We’re doing well,” Boone said of the pen, pointing to the April holidays that help protect them.
“The whole bullpen played a role and we relied on the boys equally to share the task,” Boone said. “But as you go later in the month, more in the summer, you have to rely on the starting pitchers to delve into the games.”
Kluber said he doesn’t think beginners are putting pressure on them to lengthen the rotation, which only Gerrit Cole offered.
“I don’t feel it,” Kluber said. “Most boys do two rotations by rotation – a few boys three [times]. I don’t think there’s any sense of pressure. ”