The Yankees were on the verge of winning two straight and taking their first series in over a month until the bullpen let them down Thursday.
In their 6-5 loss to the Nationals, the bullpen gave up a late lead, punctuated by Tommy Kahnle’s poor performance on Thursday. The righty gave up two home runs in the seventh and took the loss.
Asked after the game what happened in that inning, Kahnle chalked it up to location.
“Just location. [My changeups] are right over the middle and it seems that guys are starting to catch on,” Kahnle explained after the game. “That's my go-to pitch and it seems I need to make an adjustment and go from there.”
Alex Call took Kahnle deep first on a 90 mph changeup right over the heart of the plate. That home run gave the Nats a 4-3 lead. One batter later, CJ Abrams -- who took Kahnle deep Tuesday -- obliterated a 91 mph changeup over the plate.
“It seems I’m missing middle a lot lately,” Kahnle added. “I need to go back and regroup and figure out what I’m doing wrong here.”
“Today it looked like he lacked depth to his pitches,” manager Aaron Boone said of Kahnle’s outing. “When he’s really good he has great arm speed and deception with his changeup. … probably not quite the depth and less arm speed on it. Today his pitches looked vulnerable. I thought he was a little bit off today.”
Kahnle had a late start to his 2023 season after suffering bicep tendinitis in February. In 33 appearances this season, he’s 1-3 with a 3.00 ERA and a 1.17 WHIP. He started off strong, not allowing a run in 15.1 innings before the All-Star break.
Since then, however, Kahnle has allowed 12 runs (10 earned) in 14.2 innings including four in his last two appearances.
“It’s been pretty frustrating,” Kahnle admitted. “Nothing I can do but keep going. Gotta work on some things and hope it gets better.”
One way Kahnle can improve is to mix up his pitches more. Kahnle is almost a changeup-only pitcher. Thursday, just four of his 16 pitches thrown were non-changeups (all fastballs).
“The velo has been getting a little higher lately so maybe I need to start mixing in more fastballs and maybe not be so heavily reliant on the changeup right now,” Kahnle said. “It’s the big leagues and these guys are going to adjust and I gotta adjust with it.”
Kahnle says he’s capable of adjusting on the fly and he’ll need to if he wants to become a viable option for the Yankees next season.