Devin Williams began his tenure with the New York Yankees in the typical way closers often start their outings, getting the same light show and rocking entrance Clay Holmes began getting and others such as Edwin Diaz and Felix Bautista get when they begin outings with the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles.

It was supposed to be a signal that Williams would quickly get the three necessary outs to finish off his bearded debut against several familiar faces since he was facing his former Milwaukee Brewers teammates nearly four months after being traded to the Yankees for Nestor Cortes.

Instead, it was somewhat of a struggle to get it done and Williams needed 36 pitches to do so. It was his most pitches in any of his 69 career saves and the fourth-highest total of a career that began in 2019 when he made 13 appearances for a bullpen anchored by Josh Hader.

“The toughest three outs in the game are the last three, and to do it against your former team, the team that knows you, that was impressive,” Aaron Judge said.

“I was getting very uncomfortable to where he was from a pitch count standpoint,” manager Aaron Boone said.

Making your debut for your new team against your old team does not happen often and certainly schedule makers were not anticipating one of those scenarios when they announced in September the Milwaukee Brewers would start the season against the Yankees.

After the music finished, Williams allowed the first three hitters to reach. He fell behind Brice Turang before the infielder settled for a sacrifice fly and then recovered enough for the Yankees’ fifth strikeout of Jackson Chourio and a strikeout against Christian Yelich on a fastball.

“It’s the same game in my mind,” Williams said before noting the increased media presence around him. “Obviously, there’s a little bit of different expectations, more eyes on you here. But none of that’s going through my mind when I’m on the mound.”

Williams made his comments a short while after a few boos of anxiousness started appearing three batters into his outing. It was not the hateful boos of a group collectively saying they have no faith in you but rather the boos of apprehension at the prospect of seeing a bottom of the ninth or worse – overtime.

The nervous reaction played into what Boone pointed out about 6 1/2 hours earlier when discussing the value of getting off to a good start.

“This is overreaction week,” Boone said. “All the excitement that goes into opening day, now it’s the week of overreaction. We get off to a really good start and we’re gonna win the World Series; we get off to a tough start this week and it’s, ‘Well you want to get rid of that noise.”

If the outing continued to go sideways and the Yankee lost, the overreaction might have kicked into full gear like it might for some people discussing the Mets after Juan Soto struck out to his debut with a 3-1 loss to the Houston Astros. Instead, Williams was able to exhale and reflect on one of his toughest saves to date.

“Didn’t think my command was the best today,” Williams said. “It wasn’t the easiest one. They kind of made me work.’’

The Brewers might have made him work because they saw enough of the repertoire highlighted by the “Airbender” changeup

“He’s great,” Milwaukee manager Pat Murphy said. “Devin’s one of the best in the game. That’s why the Yankees came and got him. He’s one the best in the game. When you have another team that knows you and puts together a good approach and then you still wiggle out of it, it’s a credit to him.”

As for whether the Brewers actually do possess advantage might be a matter of debate but not necessarily the case in the estimation of two players who were involved in the ninth.

“I don’t think so,” Yelich said. There’s so much info out there about people now, I don’t think it makes a big difference because it’s not like we’ve all faced them a ton of times. I think we just had some good at-bats and made sure to make him execute which he did in the end.”

“Maybe,” Jake Bauers said. “You really can only have so much of an advantage against a guy like that. My whole approach going in was trying to get deep in the count with him and take my chances on 2-2, 3-2.”