BALTIMORE — With Devin Williams in a timeout as the Yankees’ closer, pitching coach Matt Blake spent a few minutes dissecting the right-hander’s woes with the New York Daily News, The Athletic and the YES Network before the Bombers opened a three-game series with the Orioles on Monday.

Blake, like those watching Williams, isn’t exactly sure why the two-time National Reliever of the Year has gotten off to a rough start with the Yankees. However, the impending free agent had an 11.25 ERA, two losses and one blown save over 10 games entering Monday. That performance forced manager Aaron Boone to remove Williams from the closer’s role “for right now,” the manager announced Sunday.

Luke Weaver is expected to handle most save opportunities in the meantime.

“Being the closer is a position you have to earn, and you have to keep earning it to continue to be in that role,” Williams said. “So lately, I haven’t been doing that.”

Williams added that he’d like to clean up some sequencing and “what we’re doing as a group.” That led to a few questions for Blake at Camden Yards.

Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and length.

What are you seeing from Devin? What can he fix or correct?

“That’s kind of a tricky one. A lot of the stuff suggests pitch profiles are largely the same. Fastball’s got a little more ride than it historically has had. Maybe velo down a tick. But to me, just subjectively, just a little bit of the fastball lines kind of get crossed a little bit at times when he’s trying to throw strikes with it. And obviously the big one is just the lack of miss and chase on the change-up. Some of it’s just, are they selling out to it? Is it the areas he’s putting it in? To me, it’s controlling the counts more than anything, as a starting point.”

He made a comment about cleaning up sequencing and buying into what the group is doing ...

“There’s just a general flow of the game that he wants to get into and not being overly reliant on the change-up where they can eliminate other things. That’s the biggest thing. And I think some of that comes down to throwing strikes with the fastball when he needs to and getting to counts where they have to pick between the fastball and the change-up and not just settle on one.”

Is there any disagreement on sequencing or approach?

“I don’t think so. We haven’t had great results yet, so I don’t think there’s any hard and fast what should we be doing. Other than, what we’re doing is currently not working. So I think it’s kind of eliminating some of the misses with the fastball, getting the change-up to some good areas, and then some luck getting in our favor too. We’ve had some weak contact that hasn’t gone our way.”

Does it confuse you that he hasn’t gotten results considering the metrics are similar to what they’ve been in the past?

“It’s not too dissimilar from when we got [Carlos] Rodón initially. And it’s like this guy’s been lights out with a fastball and slider, and now the fastball and slider — I don’t think it’s as extreme as where they’re selling out for the fastball. I think there is a general awareness for the change-up. But Tommy Kahnle, they knew the change-up was coming. He threw it 53 times in a row. You can have success in this league when you have outlier pitches.

“So I think there’s just some little things to clean up, some luck to go in our favor, and a little bit of command stuff. All of it kind of compounds together in big spots when you’re in the ninth inning. And I think it’s this place is unforgiving. So it’s just taking a breather and, more than anything, just stabilizing.”

Have you been able to identify the main issue?

“I don’t know if there’s one main thing other than the swing and miss is not coming on the change-up.”

Why hasn’t the change-up gotten the swing and miss?

“It’s a question we’re still kind of trying to bear down on. When the metrics are similar and the miss isn’t showing up, is there some deception component to it? Is there some predictability to it? Is there a lack of getting to the right areas with it? All those things come up.”

Do you expect him to get the closer’s role back?

“Yeah. I don’t know what the timeline looks like, but I think that we would fully anticipate him throwing high-leverage innings for us, seven, eight, nine, and saves included. It’s just making sure we take care of him and do right by the team and make sure we’re getting the best version of Devin whenever he ends up back in those spots.”

Do you start him off low-leverage, or could he pitch in right spots right away?

“We’re open to a couple of those scenarios… [We’re] trying to find the right landing for him, but that could be a multitude of situations. More than anything, we didn’t want to say, ‘You only get save situations, and you have to figure it out in those spots.'”

He’s coming from Milwaukee, the smallest media market, to the biggest. He’s made multiple comments about how many reporters are around. Do you get the sense that he’s actually fully comfortable here?

“I think everyone gets there at their own pace. I wouldn’t say he’s uncomfortable, but obviously it is a change of pace living in Milwaukee to living in New York and dealing with the media here versus dealing with the media there and the expectations and the bright lights of being a closer in this environment. It’s just noisier. I don’t know if any of that has to do with why he’s struggled early in the season. Those are all real things to consider. He just had a baby. He’s got things going on at home that we’re dealing with. I think all of those things add up over there.”

How do you assess the way he’s just handling everything?

“I think he’s handling it well, all things considered. He’s been arguably the best or one of the two best closers in the game the last four years. It’s not going to be easy for anyone to deal with, but I think he’s taking it in stride. He’s obviously disappointed at the way it’s going, but the work stays consistent. I think the feedback and the conversations continue to happen about what we want this to look like and how we get there. I mean, all things considered, he’s been a professional.”

It took you guys a long time last year to take Clay Holmes out of the closer role. It was much faster with Devin. Was there something that told you now is the time to take him out?

“In the situation we had Clay, there was a longer track record of him doing it at a really high level. We didn’t necessarily have alternatives along the way. They emerged as the season went on. We know that Weave has done it here in the recent past. We’ve got four or five guys that can handle the ninth, so rather than [Williams] be the sole burden of trying to finish games while he’s kind of scuffling, let’s just take that off his plate and get him right and then let the other guys share the burden in the short term.”

Did Weaver’s hot start push you guys to move even quicker?

“I think it just gave us — whether it’s Weave, [Tim] Hill, [Fernando] Cruz, or [Mark] Leiter [Jr.] — I think we feel good with all of those guys pitching in the ninth. Obviously, Weave is probably going to get the most opportunities. At the same time, he can pick up some leverage spots in the seventh and eighth, if someone else can do it. I think we felt good about our collective pool of relievers that it didn’t have to be all on Devin to do it.”

On Friday night, you had over 40,000 fans chanting “We want Weaver.” Do you have to talk to Devin about that? Does that at all factor into your decision to take him out of the role?

“It definitely doesn’t help. I think we’ve seen that over the years, whether it’s Clay or [Aroldis Chapman] or whoever. Those things don’t help the situation get better. That’s the unfortunate part of how excited our fan base is when we’re winning, but the other side is it can be very polarizing. They voice their opinion when things aren’t going well. I think guys just have to learn how to navigate that. We’ve been hit or miss with that over the years. The earlier we can nip that in the bud and just get him into a spot where we can stabilize – I felt like Boonie, us, we all talked about it. Like, let’s not continue to push this if we don’t have to.”

Did you talk to Devin about that?

“Not about that scenario in particular. I know Boonie talked to him one-on-one and we’ve all kind of had our conversations around it but not about that specifically.”

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