{"id":303712,"date":"2026-07-23T13:40:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303712\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T13:40:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T13:40:32","slug":"paul-blackburns-stellar-work-is-making-him-a-yankees-secret-no-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/303712\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Blackburn’s stellar work is making him a Yankees secret no more"},"content":{"rendered":"

For weeks, Aaron Boone considered Paul Blackburn a secret.<\/p>\n

Despite the right-handed reliever piling up zeroes out of the bullpen, he was going unnoticed.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s beginning to change.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbout a week ago, 10 days ago, somebody asked me about the job he had done,\u201d Boone said after Blackburn delivered two innings of shutout relief to help the Yankees take Game 2 of Wednesday\u2019s doubleheader over the Pirates, 2-0,<\/a> and salvage a split in The Bronx. \u201cIt had been about a month-plus of some really good work \u2014 whether it be a high-leverage situation, whether it\u2019s giving you multiple innings on a given night.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been about six weeks where he\u2019s gotten his stuff in a really good place. He\u2019s another guy like [Brent] Headrick, you feel good about going through lefties and righties. He\u2019s been big for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewYankees pitcher Paul Blackburn (58) reacts to getting out of the seventh inning with men on when the Yankees played the Pirates in Game 2 of a doubleheader on Wednesday. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n

The veteran righty is enjoying a terrific year, pitching to a 2.00 ERA after his latest performance. He has given up just one earned run over his past 14 appearances dating back to June 21 spanning 21\u2009\u00b9\/\u2083 innings.<\/p>\n

After using high-leverage arms David Bednar, Fernando Cruz and Headrick in the opener, Blackburn\u2019s two frames were integral to the victory. He inherited a runner on first base in the seventh, and when Jared Triolo stole second and went to third on catcher Ali S\u00e1nchez\u2019s throwing error, the Pirates were set up to take the lead. <\/p>\n

But Blackburn struck out Ryan O\u2019Hearn and Marcell Ozuna to escape trouble, and the Yankees broke through in the bottom half of the inning.<\/p>\n

The 32-year-old veteran joined the Yankees last year after he was released by the Mets in August. He didn\u2019t perform well, but he enjoyed his time in The Bronx and returned on a one-year deal. This year, he has taken off.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust when I showed up last year, I didn\u2019t know what to expect,\u201d Blackburn said. \u201cI walked in, there was a plan for me from day one. It just seemed like they were interested in helping me and getting me back to where they thought I could be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tYankees Merch Shop\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tNew York Post receives revenue from affiliate and advertising partnerships for sharing this content and when you make a purchase.\t\t<\/p>\n

One major factor: increased velocity. It is up across the board for Blackburn. He is averaging a career-best 94.2 mph on his sinker, up from 92.6 a year ago, and it has made his secondary pitches more effective.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a full offseason this year,\u201d Blackburn said. \u201cI focused on little different things I needed to get stronger and [gain] more mobility. Just ran with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For weeks, Aaron Boone considered Paul Blackburn a secret. Despite the right-handed reliever piling up zeroes out of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35539,20,9,11,10,321,19217,319],"class_list":["post-303712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aaron-boone","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-yankees","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303712","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=303712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}