Aaron Boone hasn't watched the same Clay Holmes as Yankees fans this season

It feels like every time the New York Yankees lose, it's because one of two things happened. Either their offense not including Aaron Judge and Juan Soto fails to produce enough, or Clay Holmes blows a game late. The latter happened in Tuesday's loss to the Texas Rangers.

Holmes was handed a one-run lead entering the ninth inning of what was a crucial game for New York. The Baltimore Orioles had already won, so in order for them to hold onto first place in the AL East, they'd need to find a way to win. Normally teams holding a lead in the ninth with their closer available win a large majority of the time but that has not been the case with Holmes this season, and he blew another game.

A single and two walks loaded the bases for Wyatt Langford with one out in the ninth before he launched a 3-2 hanging slider into the second deck in left field to hand the Yankees a damaging blow.

Unfortunately, this was far too predictable of an outcome for Yankees fans as Holmes blew his league-leading 11th save of the season (nobody else has more than eight). Yankees fans knew this was coming, but somehow, Aaron Boone did not.

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Aaron Boone continues to ignore the obvious regarding Clay Holmes

Boone continues to make the soft contact excuse as if Yankees fans should find any solace in that kind of answer. In a sense Boone is right. Holmes has been victimized by soft contact at times this season. However, when relievers like Holmes don't generate enough swings and misses, bad things can happen. Making contact can lead to great results.

The bottom line with Holmes is that this is a results-based business. Even if Holmes gets unlucky from time to time (he certainly was not unlucky on Tuesday), no Yankees fan is going to care if this continues to happen. Ever since the middle of May, Holmes has not been good enough.

The right-hander did not allow a single earned run through his first 20 appearances and had 13 saves in his first 14 attempts. Since then, he has pitched to a 5.14 ERA converting just 16 of his 26 save opportunities. The difference is night and day.

Even if Holmes is getting unlucky at times, he's made it abundantly clear by how he has pitched that he should not be used in the closer role, yet Boone, for whatever reason, sticks with him. They don't have an obvious successor that sticks out thanks to a lackluster Brian Cashman trade deadline on that front, but can't they try anything else? Clearly Holmes in this role is not working.

It's not as if Holmes has struggled for a couple of outings -- this has been since mid-May. He has objectively been the worst closer since May and Boone changes nothing. It makes no sense and will cost the Yankees come October if nothing is done.