NEW YORK (AP) — After finishing a rocky first season in pinstripes with four scoreless postseason outings, Devin Williams is open to re-signing with the New York Yankees.
“At first it was a challenge, but I’ve grown to love being here,” the reliever said after the Yankees were eliminated with a 5-2 loss to Toronto in Game 4 of their AL Division Series. “I love this city. I love taking the train to the field every day. Yeah, I really enjoyed my experience here.”
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New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams prepares for the next batter during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams reacts after giving up a two-run RBI single to Toronto Blue Jays' Nathan Lukes during the seventh inning of Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
A two-time All-Star acquired from Milwaukee in December, Williams had a career-worst 4.79 ERA and 18 saves in 22 chances, losing the closer's job, regaining it and losing it again. In his final appearance Wednesday night, he allowed a pair of inherited runners to score when Nathan Lukes singled in the seventh inning.
“Proud of him for going through certainly some, I'm sure, very tough moments professionally this year,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s part of being a pro, though. That’s part of being great at this is handling those things and he’s done that."
A 31-year-old right-hander who made $8.6 million, Williams throws a fastball averaging 94 mph and a changeup known as the “Airbender.” After watching Williams and then Luke Weaver struggle, the Yankees obtained David Bednar from Pittsburgh at the July 31 trade deadline and installed him as their closer.
Bednar is under club control for next season, and Williams said having the chance to close will factor into his signing decision.
“I feel like it depends on the scenario,” he said. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
Williams started hearing boos just 18 pitches into his Yankees career, making the Division Series cheers especially satisfying.
“It’s nice to feel appreciated sometimes. Yeah, it was definitely a lot better than what I’ve heard for much of the year,” he said.
Control issues hurt him this season, when batters had a .391 average in at-bats after he fell behind 2-0 in the count and .455 after he went to 3-1.
For much of the season, Boone kept pointing out that advanced analytics showed Williams was pitching better than his statistics indicated. Williams' opponents' expected batting average of .198 ranked 17th among pitchers facing at least 100 hitters.
“That’s baseball sometimes," Williams said. "You hope that the math starts math-ing and stuff starts to go your way on balls that are typically outs. Instead of finding holes, they’re finding gloves."
His 2024 season ended in the NL Wild Card Series finale when he allowed a go-ahead, three-run homer to Mets slugger Pete Alonso, and Williams struggled from the outset in 2025. He loaded the bases with no outs against his former team on opening day, allowed a sacrifice fly and then struck out Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich to preserve a 4-2 win over the Brewers.
Demanding fans were livid.
Williams lost the closer's job by late April after allowing a go-ahead, two-run double to the Blue Jays' Alejandro Kirk in a 4-2 loss that left him 0-2 with an 11.25 ERA.
“I played in the smallest market in the league, to the biggest market in the league. I drove to the field every day ... it took me 10 minutes to get there in Milwaukee,” he said. “There’s just a lot of life stuff that it’s an adjustment. ... I got here a day before the season started and then had to figure out my routine kind of on the fly.”
Weaver took over as closer until straining a hamstring on May 31. Williams was thrust back into the finishing job and had converted 13 straight save chances before giving up a go-ahead, two-run homer to Tampa Bay's Josh Lowe on July 30 in a game New York rebounded to win in 11 innings.
Five days later, Williams allowed Joc Pederson’s tying homer in the ninth at Texas in a game the Yankees lost in 10 innings.
After Bednar arrived, Williams had just one more save over the final two months of the season and was handed his fourth blown save on Aug. 30 when Chase Meidroth hit a tying single in the seventh before the Yankees beat the Chicago White Sox in 11 innings.
“My mindset’s never changed throughout this whole year,” Williams said. “I just kept showing up and now I’m getting the results I want right now.”
Back when Williams was struggling, Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton urged him to “keep pushing.”
“It’s cool to see him get some appreciation for how hard he’s worked all year,” Stanton said.
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/MLB
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams delivers against the Toronto Blue Jays during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams prepares for the next batter during the seventh inning of Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series against the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
New York Yankees pitcher Devin Williams reacts after giving up a two-run RBI single to Toronto Blue Jays' Nathan Lukes during the seventh inning of Game 4 of baseball's American League Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan, delivering another major setback to the party in a nationwide battle against Republicans for an edge in this year's midterm elections.
The court ruled 4-3 that the state's Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements when it placed the constitutional amendment on the ballot to authorize the mid-decade redistricting. Voters narrowly approved the amendment April 21, but the court's ruling renders the results of that vote meaningless.
Writing for the majority, Justice D. Arthur Kelsey wrote that the legislature submitted the proposed constitutional amendment to voters “in an unprecedented manner.”
“This violation irreparably undermines the integrity of the resulting referendum vote and renders it null and void," he wrote.
Democrats had hoped to win as many as four additional U.S. House seats under Virginia's redrawn U.S. House map as part of an attempt to offset Republican redistricting done elsewhere at the urging of President Donald Trump. That ruling, combined with a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision severely weakening the Voting Rights Act, has supercharged the Republicans' congressional gerrymandering advantage heading into this year's midterm elections.
Richard Hudson, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee said the ruling was another sign of GOP momentum heading into the midterms.
"We’re on offense, and we’re going to win,” he said in a statement.
Don Scott, the Democratic speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, said Democrats respect the court’s opinion but lamented that it overturned the will of the voters: “They voted YES because they wanted to fight back against the Trump power grab.”
Suzan DelBene, chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, criticized the court majority for what she said was a decision that “cast aside the will of the voters,” but she said the people will have the final say.
“In November, they will, and they’ll power Democrats to the House majority,” she said in a statement.
Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn once a decade after each census to account for population changes. But Trump started an unusual flurry of mid-decade redistricting last year when he encouraged Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts in a bid to win several additional U.S. House seats and hold on to their party's narrow majority in the midterm elections.
California responded with new voter-approved districts drawn to Democrats' advantage, and Utah's top court imposed a new congressional map that also helps Democrats. Meanwhile, Republicans stand to gain from new House districts passed in Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. They could add even more after the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in the Voting Rights Act case, which has prompted some other Republican states to consider redrawing their maps in time for this year’s elections.
Virginia currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Democrats and five Republicans who were elected from districts imposed by a court after a bipartisan redistricting commission failed to agree on a map after the 2020 census. The new districts could have given Democrats an improved chance to win all but one of the state's 11 congressional seats.
The Supreme Court's majority was critical of the state’s redrawing of the congressional maps to benefit one political party. Those justices noted that 47% of the state’s voters supported GOP congressional candidates in 2024 but the new map could result in Democrats making up 91% of the state’s House delegation.
Under the Democratic-drawn map, five districts would have been anchored in the Democratic stronghold of northern Virginia, including one stretching out like a lobster to consume Republican-leaning rural areas. Revisions to four other districts across Richmond, southern Virginia and Hampton Roads would have diluted the voting power of conservative blocs in those areas. And a reshaped district in parts of western Virginia would have lumped together three Democratic-leaning college towns to offset other Republican voters.
The state Supreme Court’s seven justices are appointed by the state legislature, which has toggled back and forth between Democratic, Republican and split control over recent years. Legal experts say the body doesn’t have a set ideological profile
The case before the court focused not on the shape of the new districts but rather on the process the General Assembly used to authorize them.
Because the state’s redistricting commission was established by a voter-approved constitutional amendment, lawmakers had to propose an amendment to redraw the districts. That required approval of a resolution in two separate legislative sessions, with a state election sandwiched in between, to place the amendment on the ballot.
The legislature’s initial approval of the amendment occurred last October — while early voting was underway but before it concluded on the day of the general election. The legislature’s second vote on the amendment occurred after a new legislative session began in January. Lawmakers also approved a separate bill in February laying out the new districts, subject to voter approval of the constitutional amendment.
Judicial arguments focused on whether the legislature’s initial approval of the amendment came too late, because early voting already had begun for the 2025 general election.
Attorney Matthew Seligman, who defended the legislature, argued that the “election” should be defined narrowly to mean the Tuesday of the general election. In that case, the legislature’s first vote on the redistricting amendment occurred before the election and was constitutional, he told judges.
But, the Supreme Court said in its ruling, “this view appears to be wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
An attorney for the plaintiffs, Thomas McCarthy, argued that an “election” should be interpreted to cover the entire period during which people can cast ballots, which lasts several weeks in Virginia. If that’s the case, he told justices, then the legislature’s initial endorsement of the redistricting amendment came too late to comply with the state constitution.
The Supreme Court agreed with that argument, writing: “The General Assembly passed the proposed constitutional amendment for the first time well after voters had begun casting ballots during the 2025 general election.”
By the time lawmakers initially endorsed the constitutional amendment, statewide voters already had cast more than 1.3 million ballots in the general election, about 40% of the total votes ultimately cast, the court said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling affirms a decision by a judge in rural Tazewell County, in southwestern Virginia. The court had placed a hold on that ruling and allowed the redistricting vote to proceed before hearing arguments on the case.
In the dissent to Friday's ruling, Chief Justice Cleo Powell said the election for the purpose of considering the amendment does not include the early voting period.
“The majority’s definition creates an infinite voting loop that appears to have no established beginning,” she wrote, “only a definitive end: Election Day.”
Attorney Matthew Seligman, representing Democratic state legislators, speaks with the media following a hearing on new congressional maps before the state Supreme Court in Richmond, Va., on Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)
State Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle, center, speaks outside the Supreme Court of Virginia after arguments were heard in a redistricting-related case at the court in Richmond, Va., on Monday, April 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)
