Has Girardi Lost Confidence in Justin Wilson?

The recipe for much of the 2015 season has been simple for the New York Yankees, get the starting pitcher through five innings and hand the ball off to Chasen Shreve, Justin Wilson, Dellin Betances and Andrew Miller for the 6^th inning through the 9^th inning. For much of the season this game plan has worked with miraculous success but recently it seems like there may be a rift in the clubhouse or a wrinkle in the plan. If I didn’t know any better I’d say that Joe Girardi has lost confidence in his 7^th inning man, Wilson.

What made me think of the notion was the fact that Wilson was removed after just eight pitches in Tuesday night’s victory over the Boston Red Sox. Wilson looked sharp recording the first two outs with ease before giving up a hit to Jackie Bradley Jr. that forced him out of the game and Dellin Betances into the contest. The same happened when the Yankees were in Atlanta in the game that Luis Severino started. Wilson was not given the reigns to the full inning, although granted he did not pitch well at all in that 7^th inning, in what is looking more and more like a trend and less and less like a coincidence.


Looking at the last month or so of sample size we can see that Wilson was given less than an inning of work in four consecutive outings and saw less than a full inning nine different times since the beginning of August. The number of days in between Wilson's outings have increased as well with two instances where the lefty had four days of rest, one outing was three days after his last and two more were two days separated from his previous outing. Earlier in the season Girardi was using Wilson, Shreve, Betances and Miller every day or every other day. 

It's too early to tell if Wilson has fallen out of the Circle of Trust or if the Yankees manager is simply trying to give him more rest for the stretch run but the pattern is beginning to show. Maybe I'm looking too much into this but when I find myself second guessing myself I usually end up regretting it... because I'm usually right.