A stretch gone wrong made Luke Weaver unavailable to the Yankees for the ninth inning Sunday night at Dodger Stadium.
It likely will for the next few weeks, too.
Weaver is expected to land on the injured list Tuesday from tweaking his hamstring while stretching after completing his warmup on Sunday night, as ESPN reported the closer could miss four to six weeks.
“Hoping it’s not too serious,” manager Aaron Boone had said Sunday night, while Weaver was still getting treatment on the hamstring, before the Yankees flew home.
Weaver was off to a dominant start this season, posting a 1.05 ERA with eight saves and 24 strikeouts in 25 2/3 innings.
The blow to the back end of the Yankees bullpen is likely to thrust Devin Williams back into the closer’s role after he had lost it to Weaver in late April following a rough first month.
Williams has mostly been better since then, not giving up a run in 13 of his last 15 appearances.
His only save opportunity in that stretch came last week against the Angels, when Weaver was unavailable after pitching on back-to-back days, and Williams gave up a pair of runs before finishing off the 3-2 win.
Williams pitched the eighth inning Sunday in what was then a 6-3 game and was sharp, striking out Hyesong Kim and Teoscar Hernández around Shohei Ohtani’s groundout.
After his swing-and-miss ability went missing in the first month of the season, Williams rediscovered it in May — he now has a 34.8 percent whiff rate, good for the 95th percentile — which should help if he goes back to closing games on a regular basis.
“[Williams] pitches with an edge out there,” Boone said last week. “But I would say that even early on when he had some struggles. It felt like a similar edge, I just think he’s commanding the ball and now into the rhythm and flow of the season and has gotten into a good groove.”
The Yankees are also expected to get Fernando Cruz back in the bullpen on Tuesday, when he is first eligible to come back from the injured list for shoulder inflammation, which will give them another late-inning weapon that they missed over the last two weeks.
Mark Leiter Jr. has been throwing the ball well, too, which leaves the door open for Boone to mix and match based on matchups in the ninth inning if he chooses.
