Devin Williams' struggles continue as Yankees fall to Padres - ESPN

NEW YORK — Devin Williams' nightmare season continued Monday night with another poor outing in the New York Yankees' 4-3 loss to the San Diego Padres at a rainy Yankee Stadium.

The right-hander entered in the eighth inning with the Yankees leading 3-0. He exited with two outs — both on strikeouts — and the bases loaded after yielding a hit and two walks, leaving Luke Weaver, who recently replaced him as the club's closer, to clean the mess. But Weaver surrendered a pair of two-run hits to squander the lead as the Yankees fell to 19-16.

Williams was charged with three runs, increasing his ERA to 10.03 in 14 games this season. He departed to another smattering of boos from a scant crowd that stuck around to brave the elements and watch his first appearance at home since being demoted from the closer role.

But unlike his previous disappointing outings, Williams is confident the appearance was an outlier and attributed his performance to his inability to adjust to the sloppy conditions in the rain.

«Both walks were obviously not what you're trying to do, but I was kind of battling myself there with the landing spot,» Williams said. «Tough to control the fastball today.»

Williams said his trouble with the landing spot affected his fastball's release point. The right-hander threw seven of his 12 fastballs for balls, mostly yanking them to his glove side.

He appeared sharp when he struck out Martin Maldonado on four pitches to begin his outing. He also struck out Fernando Tatis Jr. on a changeup with runners on first and second base before Tatis was ejected for expressing his discontent with the strike zone.

But Williams walked Tyler Wade on six pitches, spraying four around the strike zone; yielded a single to Brandon