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Mark Leiter Jr. was supposed to be a difference-maker.
He was supposed to strengthen the Yankees bullpen in the late innings.
He was supposed to create a stronger bridge to closer Clay Holmes.
So far, that has yet to happen.
The former Cubs right-hander has not pitched well as a Yankee, with an astronomical 6.35 ERA.
He’s allowed 18 hits in 11 ¹/₃ innings.
And in 13 appearances, Leiter — who did not appear in Friday’s series-opening 6-3 win over the Cardinals in The Bronx — has held the opposition scoreless only seven times.
“I feel good, I feel like I’m for the most part making pitches. It’s just the game of baseball,” Leiter told The Post before the game. “Sometimes things are going to even out. You have a streak where you don’t give up a hit for nine games and then you have a little bit of a rougher patch. I try not to ride the wave too much. Just knowing that we play 162 games. Not getting caught up on weekly trends. It’s a game of adjustments and we’re constantly trying to make adjustments.”
He added: “If you look at each game, it’s better than probably the numbers would say. You have a game where you give up two homers — I think I did that once last year as well — it’s just part of the game. It just happened to be when I got to a new team. If I would’ve done that in Chicago right before I got traded, nobody would’ve ever thought about it.”
This has still not been the start the 33-year-old Leiter wanted, but he doesn’t feel he’s doing much differently than he was with the Cubs.
He had performed very well with them before the July 30 deal, notching seven consecutive scoreless outings.
As Leiter said, a few bad pitches have impacted the results negatively with the Yankees. He’s still striking out hitters — 16 whiffs in those 11 ¹/₃ innings.
The biggest change is Leiter has been giving up more extra-base hits, including four home runs. He gave up only two in 36 ¹/₃ innings with the Cubs.
“Sometimes they hit good pitches, that’s just how it goes,” he said. “I don’t want to overreact. The job is to contribute to wins, it’s a long season and we’ll be judged at the end of the season for how we did. … I’ve been in pretty good counts, and the games where I maybe strike out three out of four hitters, is the game I gave up a homer.”
Lately, Leiter has been used earlier in games.
He was brought in for the fourth inning of last Saturday’s ugly loss to the Rockies, although he did pitch in the seventh inning of Monday’s win over the Nationals.
“I feel like he’s in a pretty good headspace with it. Obviously, you come to a new team, you want to do well,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I feel like there’s no fear, this is a guy that wants the ball, has pitched well, he’s just had some outings where he’s struggled, too.
“It’s really just making sure he’s getting the ball to good spots, especially his sinker that’s not an overpowering pitch for him, but an important pitch to help him set up his split and his other secondary pitches.”
