Joe Girardi offered prophetic commentary during Yankees loss

Friday marked New York Yankees reliever Luke Weaver’s return from injury. His first appearance back was a high-leverage situation, something YES analyst Joe Girardi noted was not ideal. Viewers soon found out why.

With the score in Friday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles tied 3-3, Weaver was called upon to pitch in the eighth inning. The first batter he saw was Luis Urías. Urías fouled off both of Weaver’s first two pitches, bringing the count to 0-2. After that, Weaver threw three consecutive balls. Before Weaver’s 3-2 offering, Girardi noted that ideally, he would prefer not to use a pitcher in such a situation but conceded that the options were limited.

“When a guy doesn’t pitch for 17 days, you preferably try to give him a little bit of a softer landing,” Girardi said. “But you can’t afford to because of the score of the game tonight.”

Urías drove the next pitch he saw from Weaver over Yankee Stadium’s right field wall, breaking the 3-3 tie.

“When a guy doesn’t pitch for 17 days, you preferably try to give him a little bit of a softer landing. But you can’t afford to because of the score of the game tonight.”

Joe Girardi on Luke Weaver returning from injury.

Seconds later, Weaver allowed a home run. pic.twitter.com/QYa9NbRv2F

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 21, 2025

Within seconds, the exact scenario that Girardi openly worried about took place. We’ll call this a reverse announcer jinx.

Given that Urías’ home run stood as the game-winner (though the Orioles did add another run), it’s a rather unfortunate reverse jinx for the Yankees and their fans.