{"id":185879,"date":"2026-04-05T02:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185879\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T02:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T02:36:17","slug":"jake-birds-triple-a-stint-helped-build-strengths-ahead-of-promising-yankees-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/185879\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Bird’s Triple-A stint helped build strengths ahead of promising Yankees start"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jake Bird arrived in a trade from the Rockies at last year\u2019s deadline<\/a>, he was looking forward to finding out what made the Yankees so good at making relief pitchers better.<\/p>\n

One example he was keenly aware of when he was in Colorado was another right-hander who had come to the Yankees and turned his career around: Luke Weaver.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Luke had done really stood out,\u2019\u2019 Bird said. \u201cTo go from struggling to starring in the playoffs here and then continue to have success, that made an impression, in particular.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bird\u2019s time as a teammate with Weaver proved to be quite short, as Bird was almost immediately sent to Triple-A Scranton\/Wilkes-Barre after getting to the Yankees because of his ineffectiveness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was excited to pick his brain, but I didn\u2019t get a chance to talk to him that long,\u2019\u2019 Bird said.<\/p>\n

Instead, Bird made the most of what turned out to be an extended run with SWB, where he reconnected with the team\u2019s pitching coach, Spencer Medick, whom Bird met briefly when Medick still worked with Driveline.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York Yankees pitcher Jake Bird (59) throws a pitch during the 7th inning against the Miami Marlins. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI had talked to Spencer about pitch design and knew he was a smart guy,\u2019\u2019 Bird said. \u201cThe whole organization is good at finding what makes guys good.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bird, his focus changed<\/a> after getting sent down to the minors.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first got here, it was kind of \u2018Do your thing,\u2019 \u201d Bird said. \u201cBut when I went down, it was more about working on my stuff to at least get back to earlier last season.\u201d<\/p>\n

So his shaky performance \u2014 or worse \u2014 at SWB following the trade didn\u2019t shatter his confidence.<\/p>\n

\"NewNew York Yankees pitcher Jake Bird (59) throws a pitch during the 7th inning against the San Francisco Giants. Charles Wenzelberg\/New York Post<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never want to [struggle], no matter where you are,\u2019\u2019 Bird said. \u201cBut I knew they were helping me build my strengths and improve my weaknesses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results have been excellent so far this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After another strong performance in Friday\u2019s win over Miam<\/a>i, Bird entered Saturday having allowed just one hit \u2014 and no walks \u2014 while striking out five in 4 \u00b9\/\u2083 innings this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had thoughts on my repertoire [at SWB] and presented it through a lens of who I was as a pitcher,\u2019\u2019 Bird said.<\/p>\n

Bird\u2019s stuff has intrigued teams in the past \u2014 which is what led the Yankees to acquire him despite poor overall numbers.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGo beyond the box score with the Bombers\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Yankees by Greg Joyce, exclusively on Sports+.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Perhaps he\u2019s now pitching at the level organizations had believed he\u2019d get to and showing what his ceiling could be.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think about that,\u2019\u2019 Bird said. \u201cI just want to find out and be the best I can be and have the right approach\u2026 It\u2019s been a decent start for me, but I think there\u2019s a lot of room to improve.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jake Bird arrived in a trade from the Rockies at last year\u2019s deadline, he was looking forward…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[20,9,11,10,321,74697,319],"class_list":{"0":"post-185879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-headlines","11":"tag-new-york-news","12":"tag-new-york-yankees","13":"tag-pitchers","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}