NEW YORK — The celebration barely had time to settle before the Yankees front office made a move that a lot of people in the Bronx had seen coming.
Just hours after New York completed an 11-10 walk-off victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Monday night, the Yankees optioned right-hander Jake Bird to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. The decision followed a bruising outing in which Bird allowed a three-run home run to Mike Trout and gave back a lead the club had worked hard to build. With the bullpen still searching for stability through a stretch of 13 games in 13 days, the organization acted quickly.
A corresponding call-up had not been announced as of Tuesday morning. But four names from the Yankees’ farm system are already drawing serious attention as candidates to fill the vacancy.
How Monday’s outing sealed Bird’s fate
Bird entered the game in the sixth inning with a runner on first base and two outs. He worked the count to 3-2 against Mike Trout before leaving a sweeper out and over the middle of the plate. Trout did not miss it. The three-run blast, measured at 421 feet, tied the game at seven and handed the Angels control of the inning. Bird did escape the sixth but came back out for the seventh, where he gave up a hard-hit single and a hard-hit double. He was charged with a game-tying sacrifice fly on his final batter.
All told, Bird allowed four runs across 1.1 innings of work. The damage wiped out the lead Aaron Judge had delivered moments earlier with his second home run of the night.
Manager Aaron Boone addressed Bird’s performance after the game. Speaking to reporters about a night when the Yankees were already shorthanded in the bullpen, Boone offered measured words for a pitcher who had been leaned on heavily during a difficult stretch.
“It was a tough night for him, but I thought he made a lot of really good pitches,” Boone said. “A couple of mistakes they really put charges into to get back in the game. He had a hard time finishing off a couple of at-bats.”
Boone also confirmed that the Yankees were managing their bullpen carefully on Monday, noting the club was “a little short” after making the decision to stay away from Brent Headrick and Ryan Yarbrough.
Bird’s rocky tenure in pinstripes
Bird arrived in New York via a trade with the Colorado Rockies before last year’s deadline and never settled into a reliable role. He made just three appearances after the deal, surrendering seven runs across two innings before being optioned to Triple-A. He opened the 2026 season showing improvement, turning in four consecutive scoreless outings that gave the Yankees reason for cautious optimism. Then came a three-run loss to the Miami Marlins on April 5, and Monday’s outing against Trout followed in the same vein. Through eight appearances this season, Bird has allowed six runs on nine hits with nine strikeouts in seven innings.
Winquest officially returns to St. Louis Cardinals
On the same night Bird was optioned, the Yankees officially returned right-hander Cade Winquest to the St. Louis Cardinals, closing out one of the more unusual roster episodes in recent franchise memory. Winquest, 25, was selected by New York in last December’s Rule 5 Draft, becoming the Yankees’ first Rule 5 player to make the Opening Day roster since infielder Josh Phelps in 2007. Despite appearing on the active roster for 12 games, he never threw a pitch in a regular-season contest. The Cardinals reclaimed him for $50,000 and assigned him to Triple-A Memphis. GM Brian Cashman acknowledged the difficulty of keeping a developmental arm active on a roster built to compete, noting that finding room to develop a player and fighting for a pennant at the same time is a hard balance to strike.
Four Triple-A arms in line for a Bronx call
With Bird now in Scranton and roster space available, the Yankees have options. All four leading candidates are currently at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre and have shown enough in the early weeks of the season to warrant serious consideration.
Kervin Castro and Yerry De los Santos are the most immediately available. Both are on the Yankees’ 40-man roster and were optioned to Scranton before Opening Day. De los Santos has been one of the sharper arms in the RailRiders bullpen, working in the mid-to-upper 90s with solid control and missing bats in his outings. Either pitcher could be in the Bronx within 24 hours if the Yankees make the call.
Yovanny Cruz is a name that has built buzz across the organization. The young right-hander routinely sits in triple digits with his fastball, and his slider has been an outright weapon in Triple-A, generating a 75 percent whiff rate in early appearances. What has held Cruz back throughout his development is command, but through 4.1 innings in Scranton this season, he has issued just one walk while striking out seven. That kind of efficiency, if it continues, could push him to the big leagues ahead of schedule.
Carlos Lagrange is the most intriguing option of the four, and also the most complicated. The 22-year-old is being developed as a starting pitcher and has impressed in his early Triple-A outings, sitting at 97 to 99 mph with a sweeper, a changeup and a cutter that projects as a genuine swing-and-miss pitch against right-handed bats. The Yankees have been protective of his development in the rotation, but the ongoing volatility in the bullpen has kept his name in circulation internally. A summer call-up in a relief role remains a real possibility if Scranton’s depth forces the conversation.
The Yankees play the Angels again Tuesday night with Ryan Weathers starting. How long the bullpen holds together may determine how fast the front office moves on one of these four arms.
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