How Yankees’ Jonathan Holder turned into Mr. Dependable

Yankees second-year righty overcame early season struggles to become a major bullpen weapon. Jonathan Holder struck out two batters while throwing a scoreless sixth inning in the Yankees’ 4-2 win over the Nationals on Monday, June 18, 2018 (6/18/18) at Nationals Park in Washington, DC.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — Quick, who’s been the Yankees‘ most reliable reliever over the last two months?

It’s not Dellin Betances.

The big guy has been their most dominating bullpen piece of late and he was great again working a 1-2-3 eighth with three strikeouts in Monday night’s 4-2 win over the Washington Nationals, but Betances hasn’t been on a two-month roll.

It’s not closer Aroldis Chapman, who has been lights out turning ninth-inning leads into wins, and with a little scare, picked up his 21st save in 22 chances with Monday’s win.

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It’s also not Chad Green, who mostly has been tremendous aside from Monday’s first game when he allowed a tie-breaking homer that doomed the Yankees.

Here’s another name:

Jonathan Holder.

The 13th pitcher on a 13-man staff at the start of the season, Holder has been on a ridiculous run since the third week of April that continued Monday night with a Houdini act that saved the Yankees during the second-game win.

After the Yanks lost the completion of a May 15 suspended game 5-3, their slim lead in the makeup of a May 16 rainout was in jeopardy when Holder replaced starter Sonny Gray during a sixth-inning crisis.

With the Yankees up 4-2, Holder entered with runners on the corners and nobody out.

Holder’s thought process at the time?

“I’m trying to get out of it,” Holder said. “Sonny had a great start and I was trying to save that for him.”

Three batters later, the first two by strikeout, the Yankees were off the field still leading thanks to Holder extending his streak of allowing no earned runs to an incredible 22 innings over his last 20 outings. Along the way, he lowered his ERA to 2.19.

This hot streak for Holder began with his first outing in his second stint with the Yanks this season.

What changed?

“He’s kind of switched from more of a curveball to a slider and we’ve seen a little bit of a bump in the velocity since spring training,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I know a year or two ago he was throwing harder, and he had lost some of the velocity. We’re routinely now seeing 92, 93, 94 mph, and the one thing he does great is pound the strike zone.

“But he’s relied more on the slider as opposed to the curveball early in the year, and that’s become a real weapon for him.”

Holder began the year with the big club, but was optioned to Triple-A after allowing seven runs, six earned, over his first three outings.

Being sent down motivated Holder, a 25-year-old from Mississippi who as a rookie in 2017 was 1-1 with a 3.89 ERA over 37 appearances.

“That’s part of the game,” Holder said. “That’s part of being young and having (minor-league) options. I just took it one game at a time. Go down and work on stuff.”

After pitching to a 3.00 ERA in four outings for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Holder returned. And ever since he’s been lights out allowing just three unearned runs and nine hits over 22 innings.

“He went from a guy that frankly kind of barely made the team out of spring training,” Boone said. “He was sent down pretty early. And since he’s come back, he’s just earned more and more opportunities. He’s earned bigger opportunities.

“The more guys we can have in the mix in those high-leverage spots, the more we can kind of protect each other. Man, just another terrific performance. I’m just so proud at what he continues to do.”

The Nats sixth began with Gray walking Anthony Rendon and then a line single to right by 19-year-rookie rookie Juan Soto.

Enter Holder, whose first task was facing first baseman Mark Reynolds, a slugger who earlier drove in the Nats’ two runs with a groundout and sacrifice fly.

This time Reynolds had a tremendous 12-pitch at-bat, but it ended with Holder striking him out on a slider.

“I was fortunate to make it one pitch at a time and get him at the end,” Holder said.

From there, Holder struck out pinch-hitter Daniel Murphy on three pitches to take away the threat of a game-tying sac fly, then he got out of the inning by retiring light-hitting catcher Pedro Severino on a popup to short.

“That was huge,” Gray said. “Walking off the mound there, at that situation you’re just kind of hoping that we can get out of the inning with a tie game. To do what he did was incredible, and I feel like after he did that you could feel a jolt go across the bench and we knew we were going to win this game.“

From there, the Yankees added an insurance run in the seventh on a two-out RBI double by Giancarlo Stanton and they held on to escape town with a win and a loss instead of two losses.

Holder got a lot of love from teammates during post-game interviews.

“It’s impressive how he commands the zone,” right fielder Aaron Judge said. “That’s the biggest thing I’ve seen with him.”

“Very impressive,” added center fielder Aaron Hicks. “Being able to come into a situation like that and shut it down was big for us in that part of the game.”

Randy Miller may be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com on Facebook.