It might be time for the Cleveland Guardians to shorten their scouting report on New York Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle, whose scoreless ninth inning on Friday featured 22 straight changeups. This after a scoreless 1 2/3 innings on Thursday that featured 18 straight changeups.
“Typically, I can’t be throwing 44 straight changeups,” Kahnle says. “I do have to kind of change the approach. I can’t just typically throw changeup after changeup, but if we tend to be getting away with it, we can’t stray away from it. But I would like to incorporate some more fastballs, definitely.”
So far, he has gotten away with it: Kahnle sealed an 8–6 win in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series that pushed the Yankees 27 outs from the World Series. Doing that math on Saturday in Game 5—the third straight without an off-day—might constitute manager Aaron Boone’s most difficult challenge yet. It had him in fits on Friday…