1. I thought it was gone, but I wasn’t sure. It was high enough and far enough, but would it stay fair? From my vantage point, I had a clear view down the third-base line and the ball was starting hook. If it stayed fair it would be the biggest postseason moment of Aaron Judge’s postseason career. If it went foul, it would be just another what-could-have-been moment in Judge’s postseason career.

“When the ball is in the air, it’s kind of silent,” Judge said. “You’ve got a lot of unknown.”

The ball clanged off the left-field foul pole, as high up the pole as any ball has ever been hit to left field at this version of Yankee Stadium. Three-run home run. Tie game.

“But then right when it hits the pole, I’m looking straight at my teammates,” Judge said, “all the guys that have been battling with me all year long, battling for this moment.”

2. The moment was Judge’s. It was the kind of moment Yankees fans have waited for him to have, praying he would have it each time he has stepped to the plate in this postseason and past postseasons in big spots. The kind of moment I thought he would have this postseason when I wrote this last week:

I truly think Judge will have his signature postseason if the Yankees’ season continues past Game 3 of the Wild Card Series. In past postseasons, Judge has looked lost from his first at-bat. He has only hit singles in this series, but he got one each off of Crochet, Chapman and Bello — three household names. He’s been on base four times in eight plate appearances and has only struck out twice against top-tier arms. If the monster hit doesn’t come for Judge in Game 3 and the Yankees are able to advance, the Blue Jays are in for a world of shit in the ALDS. For someone who has been as critical of Judge in the playoffs as anyone in the world, I really believe this postseason could be his 2009 Alex Rodriguez postseason.

3. The absurdity of the pitch — a 99.7-mph fastball more than a foot inside — being hit for a long home run is still hard to process. Louis Varland had just thrown a 100-mph fastball past Judge with ease on the pitch prior and was also ahead 0-2 in the count. But like Derek Jeter said after the game, Judge is the only person in the world capable of hitting that pitch for a home run.

“He made a really good pitch look really bad,” Varland said.

4. Judge had the opportunity to change Game 1 and he struck out. In Game 2, the Yankees never had a chance because of how bad Max Fried was. In Game 3, Judge saved the Yankees’ season and possibly changed the series, considering it’s hard to believe the Blue Jays can be feeling too good about themselves right now without a traditional starter for Game 4 and having blown a five-run lead in an elimination game.

The home run capped a five-run come back for the Yankees, who trailed 6-1 in the third after Carlos Rodon provided his latest big-game, letdown effort. Rodon recorded one more out in the game (7) than earned runs allowed (6) as the Blue Jays put eight baserunners on against him in 2 1/3 innings. Rodon has now made six postseason starts for the Yankees and one has been good (Game 1 of the 2024 ALCS). Tuesday night was more of the same from Rodon in October against a good team: awful.

5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. opened the game with a two-run home run in the first for his third of the series. The Yankees answered in the bottom of the first with a run on an RBI single from Giancarlo Stanton after a Blue Jays error extended the inning. The Blue Jays put up a four-run third, and trailing 6-1, I started to think about how many innings I would give the Yankees offense to put a dent into the deficit before leaving Yankee Stadium for the last time in 2025.

The Yankees scored twice in the bottom of the third to make it 6-3 and Judge’s heroics came in the fourth to tie the game. The Yankees added two more in the fifth and one in the sixth to go to an eventual 9-6 win.

6. Judge deserves all of the credit and recognition for Game 3 for saving the Yankees’ season, but the bullpen deserves the same. Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval, Tim Hill, Devin Williams and David Bednar combined for 6 2/3 scoreless innings of relief after Rodon pooped his pants in another postseason game. Outside of Luke Weaver and Will Warren (who isn’t a reliever), the bullpen has been exceptional in the postseason. Now that the Yankees have figured out Weaver is unusable, the level of trust in what was supposed to be the Yankees’ downfall has completely changed.

7. Aaron Boone had to press a lot of right buttons to navigate the game following Rodon’s failed start, and the only wrong button he pressed all night was letting Rodon stay in with runners on second and third and Anthony Santander up in the third. Rodon had nothing, and sure enough, Santander plated both runs with a line-drive single. Once Boone got Rodon out of the game, he made a career-high five correct bullpen decisions. His move to pinch hit Amed Rosario for Ryan McMahon as early as he did in the third inning was also the right call even though it didn’t work out. The Yankees had the tying run at the plate at the time and trailing by three in an elimination game, it wasn’t certain they would get the tying run to the plate again. Outside of letting Rodon pitch as long as he did, Boone managed with the urgency one needs to manage with the season (and possibly his job) on the line and he was successful. The Boone Yankees are now 9-6 in elimination games and the Yankees as a whole kept their never-been-swept-in-the-ALDS streak alive.

8. The Yankees will face elimination against on Wednesday for the fourth time in eight days. It will be Cam Schlittler against a Blue Jays bullpen game, a day after the Blue Jays used all but two relievers to get through Game 4. The Yankees have a massive advantage on the mound, though it does come with its worries.

I don’t expect Schlittler to have anywhere need the kind of outing he had in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series because outings like that happen close to never in the postseason and also because the Red Sox suck and the Blue Jays don’t. Schlittler faced the Blue Jays in his second career start back on July 22 in Toronto and allowed two earned runs over five innings with a whole lot of traffic (10 baserunners). The next time he faced the Blue Jays on September 5 at Yankee Stadium, he got lit up. He didn’t make it through the second inning and allowed four earned runs and eight baserunners in 1 2/3 innings. In Schlittler’s 15-start career, the Blue Jays have given him the most trouble.

The Blue Jays handle high velocity and they don’t strike out and Schlittler throws high velocity and tries to get strikeouts. It’s not a good matchup for him, but a bullpen game against the Yankees isn’t a good matchup for the Blue Jays. The Yankees need Schlittler to go out there and have a normal start in terms of innings, as in five-plus innings. They can’t have what Max Fried gave them in Game 1 or what Rodon gave them in Game 2, which was 5 1/3 innings and 13 earned runs from their two highly-paid lefties. Schlittler needs to go out and return the rotation and starting pitching in the postseason to normalcy have three straight bad starts from Luis Gil, Fried and Rodon.

9. I have to think John Schneider will use a lefty to serve as either the opener or bulk reliever in Game 4. He wants to make Boone have to make decisions on playing his lefty bats and when to go to his bench. The Blue Jays bullpen had to get 16 outs in Game 3 and the Yankees have now seen and gotten to their two biggest non-closer arms in Mason Fluharty and Louis Varland. The Blue Jays went into this season with their bullpen as their weakest facet and now its fatigued and has been exposed. The only Blue Jays relievers to not pitch in Game 3 were Seranthony Dominguez and Jeff Hoffman and I wouldn’t be worried about the Yankees facing either.

If the offense shows up on Wednesday like it did on Tuesday then Schlittler won’t need to come close to the version of himself he was against the Red Sox. Judge finally broke through. Maybe Chisholm finally broke through with his go-ahead home run. Now it’s time for Stanton, Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham to do the same.

10. “Tonight was special, but there’s still more work to be done,” Judge said. “Hopefully we have some more cool moments like this the rest of the postseason.”

How long the rest of the postseason lasts for the Yankees will be determined on Wednesday. I expected the Yankees to win Game 3, and I expect them to win Game 4. I expect the Yankees’ season to survive a fourth elimination game and I expect there to be a Game 5 on Friday.

1. After a 68-hour break from being on the brink of elimination, on Sunday afternoon, the Yankees returned to where they spent last Wednesday and Thursday: a loss away from their season ending.

So much for winning this series in four games with a starting pitching edge in Games 2 through 5. The only way for the Yankees to survive the ALDS and the Blue Jays and advance to the ALCS for the third time in four years is to win three straight games against a team they are 5-10 against this season.

2. Game 2 was over quickly. The Blue Jays led 2-0 in the second, 5-0 in the third and 11-0 in the fourth. The final six innings of the game were a formality and the seven runs the Yankees scored in the sixth and seventh innings were as meaningful as Luke Weaver finishing the season with six straight scoreless appearances against the Twins, Orioles and White Sox. The Yankees scored seven runs against the back end of the Blue Jays bullpen. It doesn’t mean the Yankees finally woke up in the series. It doesn’t set them up to explode in Game 3. It means nothing and won’t serve as some kind of momentous connection to Game 3 on Tuesday. Momentum is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher and the Yankees don’t hit postseason starting pitching unless the opposition’s defense helps them out.

3. Trey Yesavage did to the Yankees what Cam Schlittler did to the Red Sox. In fact, Yesavage’s start was more impressive than Schlittler’s. Schlittler faced an anemic, banged-up, two-hitter lineup, while Yesavage faced the Yankees at full strength. Schlittler had 12 strikeouts over eight innings. Yesavage had 11 strikeouts in 5 1/3 no-hit innings. The Blue Jays pulled him in the sixth because the game was out of hand and there was nothing to gain by having him continue to waste pitches in a blowout or he likely would have struck out 15-plus.

It was Yesavage’s fourth major-league start and in his other three starts (two against the Rays and one against the Royals) he had traffic against him throughout each of them. But not against the Yankees on a postseason stage. Not against a group of left-handers who swung at his splitter like they were blindfolded, the same way they swung and missed at Kevin Gausman’s splitter the day before. It was a putrid performance from the offense.

4. Max Fried matched the offense’s putridness. The starting pitcher with the 5.10 career postseason ERA the Yankees gave $218 million to pooped his pants on the Rogers Centre mound, allowing seven earned runs and 10 baserunners in three innings. He couldn’t retire Vladimir Guerrero Jr. or Ernie Clement or even the only left-handed bat in the lineup in Daulton Varsho. When Fried was mercifully pulled from the game after the third inning, Will Warren did his best Fried impression by allowing six earned runs of his own over 4 2/3 innings, including four home runs.

5. The Blue Jays went into this series without Bo Bichette, Chris Bassitt and Jose Berrios and hold a 2-0 lead and have outscored the Yankees 23-8 and 11-1 while both teams were still managing, playing and operating as they would in a normal game setting. All of the Yankees’ offensive stats over the final 3 2/3 innings of Game 2 can be disregarded.

The trio of Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger and Giancarlo Stanton failed to do anything meaningful again. Well, unless, you consider Judge misplaying a double into a triple in the second inning or the three of them padding their stats in the late innings when the game was already over to be meaningful. While Guerrero Jr. and company were teeing off on Fried and Warren, the Yankees’ Big 3 continued to swing and miss and hit singles.

The Red Sox’ few great players lived up to expectations in the three-game series (Garrett Crochet, Trevor Story, Alex Bregman and Aroldis Chapman) and through two games the Blue Jays’ best players have done the same. Through five postseason games, the only Yankees to live up to expectation were Fried in his start against the Red Sox (which has since been negated by his start in the ALDS) and Cam Schlittler. No Yankees bat has been consistent and I don’t want to hear that Judge is hitting .444 with a 1.024. Could there be a more empty .444 batting average and 1.024 OPS in the postseason?

6. The narrative the Yankees are running out of time to win with Judge is now circulating as the Yankees are a loss away from watching their season end and it’s sickening. The Yankees haven’t won in the postseason in Judge’s career because of Judge! He has driven in two runs in the playoffs: the first was an incorrectly-scored base hit and RBI that Jarren Duran dropped and the second was a single on Sunday with the Yankees trailing by 11 runs in the seventh inning. How about Judge does what Story did in the Wild Card Series, or what Guerrero Jr. has done in the ALDS? How about he does something, anything at the plate to drive in a run that doesn’t fall out of a fielder’s glove or isn’t when the score is a double-digit difference.

7. The Aaron Boone era has been a collection of postseason disasters.

2018: Lose both home games in the ALDS, including the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history in Game 4.

2019: Lose four of the last five games in the ALCS and get walked off on by Jose Altuve.

2020: The Deivi Garcia/J.A. Happ debacle.

2021: Embarrassed at Fenway Park in the wild-card game.

2022: Swept by the Astros after Boone uses video of the 2024 ALCS as a motivation tactic.

2023: Missed postseason.

2024: Nestor Cortes vs. Freddie Freeman and the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series.

2025: 23 runs allowed in first two games of the ALDS.

Every postseason elimination has come with humiliation for the Boone Yankees and while the results of the first two games of this series aren’t on him at all, they still happened during his tenure. His Yankees lost 10-1 after he called out Buck Martinez for calling out his Yankees when he didn’t need to. His Yankees allowed 13 runs and were no-hit until the Blue Jays had enough bullying the Yankees after he said he expects his team to show up and play well in Game 2. How about he keeps his mouth shut before Game 3, but that wouldn’t be very Boone Yankees-like if he did.

8. The Boone Yankees have set preposterous franchise records, ranging from the most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history (Game 3 of the 2018 ALDS) to allowing double-digit runs in back-to-back postseason games for the first time in franchise history. After seven failed attempts to win a championship as Yankees manager, Boone is now a loss away from an eighth. With each passing year, Boone’s record for most seasons managing the Yankees before winning a championship grows closer to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hit streak in terms of how likely it is to ever be broken.

9. The Yankees will return home for Tuesday’s Game 3 and will play for their season for the third time in their last five games. The Yankees at home against the Blue Jays are a much different team than the Yankees in Toronto against the Blue Jays. The Yankees won four of six at home against the Blue Jays this season, while they have lost eight of nine in Toronto. I expect the Yankees to send this series back to Toronto solely because they are home and have the starting pitching advantage in Games 3 and 4.

10. If the Yankees’ season ends in this series, you will hear about how great a year they had winning 94 games and tied for the best record in baseball. You won’t hear about how they went 9-17 against the Red Sox and Blue Jays and blew an eight-game lead over the Blue Jays and how if they had won the division, then Games 1 and 2 of this series would have been at Yankee Stadium. You will hear from Boone about how sweet it will be once they finally win it all and you will hear Brian Cashman refer to the postseason as a crapshoot, a phrase the organization didn’t use when they used to win. It wasn’t until the Yankees stopped winning that the playoffs became the result of randomness with no skill or ability needed to succeed. It’s hard to believe anyone could believe postseason success is tied to chance or luck when the reason the Yankees are eliminated every year is the same. I guess the organization has just been unlucky for the last 15 years (going on 16) and in 23 of the last 24 years (going on 25) and the Boone Yankees have just been unlucky the entire time.

Maybe the Boone Yankees will get lucky and erase an 0-2 ALDS deficit like the Joe Torre and Joe Girardi Yankees did. Maybe their highest-paid players will act and play like it for the remainder of this series. If not, the Yankees can run it back next year with the same manager and roster and issues and see if the same manager and roster and issues can finally get lucky and win it all.

1. Bases loaded, no outs and Aaron Judge at the plate. It’s a dream scenario for Yankees fans at any time other than October. Trailing the Blue Jays 2-0 in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS with Anthony Volpe on third, Austin Wells on second and Trent Grisham on first and no outs, Judge struck out on a splitter from Kevin Gausman and that was the game.

“I wouldn’t say I was overanxious,” Judge said despite him swinging at a 3-2 splitter well off the plate suggesting otherwise. “But in the end, I didn’t get the job done. That’s what it comes down to, just not doing your job.”

Judge has rarely ever done his job in the postseason, as shown by his career postseason OPS being 252 points lower than his career regular-season OPS. He may be the most dominant right-handed regular-season bat in the history of the game, but when the calendar turns to October, his abilities annually disappear.

2. This is what I wrote about Judge after Game 2 of the AL Wild Card Series.

I truly think Judge will have his signature postseason if the Yankees’ season continues past Game 3 of the Wild Card Series. In past postseasons, Judge has looked lost from his first at-bat. He has only hit singles in this series, but he got one each off of Crochet, Chapman and Bello — three household names. He’s been on base four times in eight plate appearances and has only struck out twice against top-tier arms. If the monster hit doesn’t come for Judge in Game 3 and the Yankees are able to advance, the Blue Jays are in for a world of shit in the ALDS. For someone who has been as critical of Judge in the playoffs as anyone in the world, I really believe this postseason could be his 2009 Alex Rodriguez postseason.

It turns out it’s the Yankees who are in a world of shit because of Judge’s bat in the ALDS, not the Blue Jays. Judge went on to hit a meaningless double in his next at-bat with no one on and the game already out of hand. It was his first extra-base hit of the postseason and his one RBI remains the ball that was incorrectly scored a hit off of Jarren Duran’s glove in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series.

Judge’s swing decision on the splitter from Gausman on Saturday was disturbing. The pitch was never a strike. Not when it left Gausman’s hand, not when it traveled toward the plate and not when it reached the plate (since it never really reached the plate and finished in the other batter’s box). If Judge takes the pitch, it’s a 2-1 game with the bases still loaded and no outs and Bellinger up. If Judge drive any of the pitches in the zone in the at-bat, the Yankees likely take the lead in that spot and may have already accomplished getting a split of the first two games in Toronto. Instead, they need to now do in Game 2 what the Blue Jays did in Game 1 and win a game they are expected to win.

3. Judge isn’t alone in the offensive blame for Game 1. The entire offense failed, and their game plan to swing early against Gausman worked brilliantly in the Blue Jays’ favor, producing first-pitch outs on weak ground balls and lazy fly balls.

This is what I wrote about the Yankees’ offense after Game 2 of the Wild Card Series:

The one thing that gives me optimism in the offense is that Judge, Bellinger and Stanton haven’t done anything yet. … The longer the Yankees go in the postseason without those three hitting the ball in the gap or over the fence, the more optimistic I become about the Yankees’ chances this October.

This still holds true. Stanton had the double off the wall in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series that he admired and was nearly thrown out at second on. Bellinger had the bloop double in that game that should have been caught. Judge had a double in Game 1 of the ALDS, and in typical Judge fashion, it came when the game was over. And that’s all they have done with the bat. The trio has done close to nothing through four postseason games, and yet, the Yankees have already won a round and are in a great position with how the starting pitching lines up for the remainder of this series to win this round. But at some point, these three, or even one of these three is going to need to start hitting like they are capable of. Every other team’s stars and middle-of-the-order bats are hitting like they are expected to in the postseason, but not the Yankees.

4. The Yankees have scored 10 runs in four postseason games. Here is how they have scored those runs:

Run 1: Solo home run
Runs 2-3: Two-run home run
Run 4: Dropped fly ball
Run 5: Runner scores from first on a single inside the right-field line
Run 6: Ground ball through the left side
Run 7: Ground ball through the right side
Runs 8-9: Ground ball off the first baseman’s glove
Run 10: Bases loaded walk

The “best offense in baseball” isn’t hitting the ball over the wall and isn’t drawing walks. Instead, they are doing what they do every October, but this time Stanton isn’t carrying everyone else like he normally does, and Juan Soto isn’t there to make up for Judge.

5. Lose 2-1, 5-1, 6-1, 10-1, who gives a shit? A loss in the playoffs is a loss, and the Yankees were actually better off losing 10-1 than 2-1 in Game 1 of the ALDS because they didn’t have to unnecessarily burn Devin Williams or David Bednar in a loss, like they did in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.

I’m actually OK with the loss because it was the only game in the series the Blue Jays had to have. They had six days off, had their No. 1 starter going on extra rest and were home. The Yankees used their No. 4 (or even No 5. starter) had played three games in the previous four days — two of which were elimination games — and had to travel from New York to Toronto after finishing an elimination game just 41 hours prior. If the Blue Jays were to lose Game 1 given everything set up in their favor I would be writing about the potential for a Yankees sweep in these Thoughts.

6. I don’t think the Yankees will lose another game in this series. The Blue Jays lack a left-handed starter and in the next two games will throw Trey Yesavage and Shane Bieber and have no true starter to use in Game 4 with Jose Berrios and Chris Bassitt both injured. Yesavage has started three games in his career — totaling his entire major-league workload — and those starts came against the Rays twice and the Royals. Bieber made seven starts this season after missing most of this year and nearly all of last year following surgery (and the Yankees have prior postseason success against him). Even if this series goes five games, the Yankees would have Fried in that winner-take-all game against Gausman, which is a much different scenario than having Luis Gil.

7. Gil allowed two solo home runs and four hits total in his 2 2/3 innings of work on Saturday and Aaron Boone was right to take him out when he did. Gil, Tim Hill and Camil Doval combined to throw what was essentially a six-inning, two-run start and most games that would be good enough to win. But not when the offense doesn’t show up and not when Luke Weaver is the first guy out of the bullpen in a one-run game.

In using Weaver in the seventh inning of a 2-1 game, Boone was able to find out if he can use Weaver moving forward in a game the Yankees were already losing, and he quickly found out he can’t. Weaver faced three batters and didn’t retire any of them, just like he did in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series. He went from the fourth-most trusted reliever in the bullpen to likely needing to be left off of the ALCS roster, if the Yankees reach the next round. Weaver said, “I don’t really feel like myself” after the game and you simply can’t let a guy pitch again in the postseason who says that.

8. Boone going to Weaver in that spot wasn’t his only blunder of the night. With the Yankees trailing 2-1 in the top of the seventh, Ryan McMahon singled to put the tying run on base. McMahon remained on first base for the first three pitches of Volpe’s at-bat before being removed for a pinch runner in Jose Caballero. Why did Boone wait to use Caballero as a pinch runner? “I changed my mind,” Boone said. So Boone wasted three pitches Caballero might have had a chance to steal on and then Caballero never even attempted to steal as Volpe struck out. Caballero did run on an 0-1 pitch to Austin Wells, but Wells grounded out to first to end the inning. So Boone wasted his most valuable pinch runner for a spot in which he didn’t get a chance to steal. For anyone who wants to praise Boone for letting Cam Schlittler go eight innings in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series, just know the real Boone still exists and is still in there.

9. Just like in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, I expect Max Fried to pitch well. If he doesn’t then nothing else matters and the Yankees are the frauds I have thought the Blue Jays to be all season. This type of game is why the Yankees signed Fried and this very game is the kind the Yankees could always count on Andy Pettitte to win. Joe Torre always thought Game 2 of a series was the most important because you either have a chance to go up 2-0 or tie the series at 1. If the Yankees tie the series at 1 going back to New York for Games 3 and 4, they will have turned the best-of-5 into a best-of-3 and possess the home-field advantage they pissed away when they failed to win the division

10. The offense and mainly Judge, Stanton and Bellinger will likely determine the outcome in Game 2. If it’s a fifth straight postseason game with the trio doing nothing then the Yankees will likely be right back on the brink of elimination after a 68-hour break from the brink. It the trio or any one of them decides to show on Sunday then the Yankees will head home in control of the series.

I thought the Yankees would win this series in four before it started and the lopsided loss in Game 1 doesn’t change my mind. If the Yankees are to stay on track to win this series in four games, the offense will have to do something it hasn’t done this postseason: get production from its highest-paid bats.

1. It started with a late-game, two-out walk. That’s how the Red Sox’ began their improbable comeback in the 2004 ALCS to defeat the Yankees, becoming the first team in history to erase a 3-0 series deficit. And it was a late-game, two-out walk in this series that led to the winning run in Game 2 as the Yankees staved off elimination on back-to-back nights to become the first team in the Wild Card Series era to survive the round after losing the first game of the series.

The fact it was a Massachusetts native, Northeastern alumnus and former Red Sox fan who ended the Red Sox’ season made it that much sweeter. After being eliminated by the Red Sox in 2004, 2018 and 2021, the Yankees have once again flipped the rivalry back in their favor. After losing nine of their last 10 games postseason games to the Red Sox following the disappointing Game 1 loss, the Yankees have now won their last two postseason games against the Red Sox.

2. Cam Schlittler. He is the reason the Yankees’ season is alive and the reason they are going to be playing on Saturday (where they always should have been playing if they didn’t blow an eight-game division lead to the Blue Jays). What a performance for the rookie making his 15th major league start: 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 12 K. He dominated the Red Sox from the first batter of the game until the final out of the eighth inning. Schlittler destroyed the region he is from and the fanbase he was once part of with the most brilliant performance anyone could ask for. No one is talking about what Garrett Crochet did in Game 1 anymore. No one cares what Crochet did in Game 1 anymore. Schlittler is the story of this series. On a night in which Bucky Dent threw out the ceremonial first pitch and Aaron Boone was in the Yankees dugout, Schlittler became the latest Yankee to have his middle name changed to the F-word by Red Sox fans.

3. While the Game 1 loss sucked, it ended up being a very important loss. The way Game 1 played out and the moves that backfired on Boone led to him completely changing his managerial style in Games 2 and 3. The reason Boone left Carlos Rodon in so long in Game 2 was because of the backlash he received for pulling Max Fried when he did in Game 1, while Alex Cora let Crochet pitch into the eighth inning. The reason Ben Rice and Jazz Chisholm got to start against a lefty in Game 3 is because of the heat Boone took for benching two of his best players for platoon reasons in Game 1. The reason Schlittler got to go back out for the eighth in Game 3 was because of what Boone watched Cora let Crochet do in Game 1. You can count on one hand the times Boone has managed to the game unfolding in front of him rather than from some predetermined script in his career and you’ll likely have a couple of fingers left over. Thursday was one of those times as Schlittler kept appearing on the mound at the start of each late inning. I would have sent him back out for the ninth because he was throwing strikes and hadn’t lost any velocity. His delivery is so effortless that it looks like a 57-mph lob from a position player in a lopsided game is going to leave his hand and instead it’s 102 four-seam fastballs, 100-mph two-season fastballs and 99-mph cutters. Schlittler lost nothing over eight innings.

4. The Red Sox’ infield defense is why they struggled at times this season and that infield defense reared its head at the most opportune time for the Yankees. The Red Sox’ fourth-inning defensive meltdown was beautiful. Watching it as a Yankees fan is what I imagine Dodgers fans experienced watching the fifth inning of Game 5 of the World Series last year.

The beloved center fielder Ceddanne Rafaela decided to not chase down Cody Bellinger’s leadoff bloop in the fourth in a straight line and his diving attempt to make up for his odd route was unsuccessful leading to a leadoff “double.” Giancarlo Stanton followed with a walk before Rice had an ugly strikeout. Amed Rosario’s sole purpose on the Yankees is to hit left-handed pitching and he failed in Game 1 going 0-for-3 against Crochet and made an out against Connelly Early in his first at-bat in Game 3. But Rosario came through this time, pulling an outside 1-0 changeup through the hole on the left side to score Bellinger and gives the Yankees a 1-0 lead. Chisholm hit a line-drive single to right to load the bases with one out and Anthony Volpe pushed a ground ball through the right side to make it 2-0. Austin Wells then provided the biggest at-bat of the game. With the bases still loaded and one out, Wells fell behind 0-2 only to grind out a nine-pitch at-bat and then hit a 100.3-mph ball to first. Wells’ ball could have been an inning-ending double play, but it instead turned into two runs off the glove of mid-August waiver claim Nathaniel Lowe. 4-0 Yankees.

5. The Yankees didn’t score again in the inning. They didn’t score again in the game. They didn’t need to because Schlittler kept throwing fastballs past the Red Sox’ bats. Schlittler threw 90 percent fastballs in the game and never once tried to fool the Red Sox with his secondary pitches. It was the ultimate “Here it is, hit it” game and the Red Sox couldn’t. They had one baserunner reach as far as second base the entire game.

The win saved the Yankees’ season and possibly saved Boone’s job. But if he were to manage with more feel for each live game and less “Luke Weaver is coming into the game in this predetermined spot no matter what” then no one would have a problem with his decision making. If Boone plays his ‘A’ lineup each game in the postseason and isn’t quick to go to his shaky bullpen the Yankees will be just fine. They will be more than fine.

6. As I wrote before the postseason, the Red Sox in a best-of-3 series was the worst possible draw for the Yankees. I would have felt comfortable and confident playing the Red Sox in a best-of-5 or best-of-7 and I would have felt the same playing any other AL team in any series length. The Yankees survived their worst possible matchup and now the path back to the World Series is right there for them. I expect them to reach the World Series.

7. Because I expect them to reach the World Series, that means I expect them to eliminate the Blue Jays in the ALDS, and I do. The Blue Jays aren’t better than the Yankees. It doesn’t matter that they finished with the same 94-68 record. It doesn’t matter that the Blue Jays won the season series 8-5. When the Yankees were swept in four games in Toronto from June 30-July 3, the combination of DJ LeMahieu and Oswald Peraza was the Yankees’ starting second baseman; Chisholm was playing third base; Geoff Hartlieb, JT Brubaker, Clayton Beeter and Ian Hamilton came out of the bullpen. The Yankees are a much different team today than they were midseason when they blew their big division lead. And so are the Blue Jays. Bo Bichette and Chris Bassitt are hurt and Jose Berrios’ season fell apart. While the Yankees’ bullpen is a collection of highly-talented, yet highly-untrustworthy arms, it looks like the late-’90s Yankees bullpen compared to the Blue Jays’. The Yankees are a better, deeper team than the Blue Jays, and in one of the rare occurrences, the Yankees have the managerial advantage. John Schneider makes Boone seem like Joe Torre or Bruce Bochy.

8. The Blue Jays don’t have a single lefty in their rotation, which means the Yankees can deploy their ‘A’ lineup every game and not have to worry about matchup bullshit. Boone can write out Grisham, Judge, Bellinger, Rice, Stanton, Chisholm, Wells, Volpe, McMahon each game and not have to worry about it. The Yankees are set up to go Luis Gil in Game 1, Fried in Game 2, Rodon in Game 3, Schlittler in Game 4 and they can go back to Fried on normal rest for Game 5. The Yankees have the rotation advantage. They have the lineup advantage. They have the bullpen advantage. They have the managerial advantage. If they don’t run the bases like drunks like John Sterling famously said during the World Series last year and don’t beat themselves on defense, they will beat the Blue Jays and advance to the ALCS. I expect the Yankees to advance to the ALCS. It will be a massive failure if they don’t win this series.

9. It’s been 22 years since I had this feeling of the Yankees being responsible for the end of the Red Sox’ season and I forgot how good it feels. Seeing the lost looks on the faces of the Red Sox watching the Yankees celebrate on the Yankee Stadium field last night was the kind of warm feeling only this matchup can provide. It brought me back to watching Pedro Martinez with his hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head depressingly watching the Yankees’ Game 7 celebration in the 2003 ALCS. I missed this glorious feeling.

10. I’m going to spend Friday enjoying the win over the Red Sox, watching Schlittler’s 12 strikeouts on a loop and consuming as many Game 3 postgame reactions from Red Sox fans who watched their season end at the hands of one of their own as possible. I will start to worry about the Blue Jays and ALDS on Saturday. Today is a day for celebration. Tomorrow afternoon in Toronto, it’s back to work.

1. I thought it was gone. I think most people did. When the ball left Ceddanne Rafaela’s bat on an 0-2 pitch from David Bednar in the ninth inning of Game 2 of the Wild Card Series, it looked like the game would improbably be tied at 4. But Aaron Judge raced back to the warning track, paused and waited for the ball in what turned out to be nothing more than a game-ending out. Ballgame over, Yankees win, season saved … for a day.

The Yankees were successful in staving off elimination for the first time this postseason not necessarily because of what they did, but because of what the Red Sox didn’t do. Brayan Bello failed to to erase a sluggish finish to the season by continuing to be bad; Jarren Duran slid for a ball off the bat of Judge that he didn’t need to slide for to give the Yankees a temporary lead; Rafaela popped up a bunt to the mound with runners on first and second and no outs in the seventh and Nate Eaton didn’t race home to give the Rd Sox the lead when Jazz Chisholm tried to make a hero play on an infield single. The Yankees tried to give the Red Sox the game. They did everything they could to do so and were fortunate to win and keep their season alive.

2. There’s nothing Carlos Rodon hates more than an early lead and after Ben Rice hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the first, Rodon gave up a single to Duran to lead off the third and then walked Rafaela. Rafaela had the fifth-worst walk rate in the league this season and yet it was his 11-pitch walk against Luke Weaver that changed Game 1 and it was his walk against Rodon in the third inning that eventually led to two runs to tie the game.

When the Yankees took the lead in the fifth on the ball Duran unnecessarily slid for, Rodon gave it right back on the third pitch of the next inning, a 2-0, middle-middle fastball that Trevor Story crushed over the left-field wall. I figured Aaron Boone would take Rodon out then, but Boone let Rodon face Alex Bregman and Rodon walked him on four pitches. OK, now Boone would take him out, right? Nope. Boone went to the mound and left the mound without Rodon. Rodon rewarded him by getting out of the inning.

3. Boone is a reactionary manager. He took so much heat and will continue to do so if the Yankees don’t win this series for removing Max Fried in Game 1 that he wasn’t going to remove Rodon in Game 2. This is what he does. He tries to make up for a mistake by doing the inverse even if the inverse isn’t the right decision. That’s why Boone let Rodon go back out for the seventh. And Rodon walked Eaton on four pitches and still got to stay in the game. He then fell behind Duran 3-0 before drilling him. Had the ball not hit hit Duran, it would have been ball 4 to the backstop and Eaton would have been on third with no outs.

Finally, Boone took the ball from Rodon in favor of Fernando Cruz. After fouling the first pitch off on a bunt attempt, Rafaela tried to bunt again and popped it up right back to Cruz. Thank you for the free out, Cora! Nick Sogard followed with a flyout to left. Game 1 pinch-hit hero Masataka Yoshida then came up and hit a 3-2 pitch up the middle that Chisholm laid out for and gloved. There was no way Chisholm was going to get Yoshida at first to end the inning, but in typical Yankees’ middle-infield fashion, he tried. Chisholm threw a hopper to Ben Rice that Rice couldn’t handle, but thankfully Eaton stayed at third. If Eaton had run home as soon as Chisholm throws the ball to first, he scores. Even if Rice fields it cleanly, he scores. But Eaton did the Yankees a favor by staying put and Cruz got Story to fly out to the deepest part of the park with the bases loaded to end the seventh. After getting the last out of the inning, Cruz went wild, and did every process of transforming into the Hulk except for turning green. To Red Sox fans and anyone watching who doesn’t watch the Yankees throughout the season, they were likely astonished at his reaction, but he has acted like that all season. He’s a 35-year-old reliever who didn’t make the majors until he was 32 and finally became an elite arm this year. He can do whatever he wants.

After Cruz got out of the seventh, the Yankees stranded a one-out double from Trent Grisham. Devin Williams worked around a leadoff single by Bregman in the top of the eighth and the Yankees took the lead in the bottom of the eighth. Chisholm worked a two-out, seven-pitch walk off of former Yankees prospect Garrett Whitlock and came around to score on an Austin Wells single just inside the right-field line. If Wells had hit that same ball at any time in the at-bat other than on a 3-2 pitch, Chisholm doesn’t score on the play. Thankfully, he did.

The Yankees loaded the bases against Whitlock before he was removed for rookie lefty Payton Tolle. With Grisham up, I would have removed Grisham and pinch hit with Jose Caballero. Scoring again was much more important than having Grisham in center field in the ninth when you could move Bellinger over to center and have Caballero play left. Grisham can’t hit lefties and he didn’t again, grounding out against Tolle. Cora knew Boone would value having Grisham in center in the ninth rather than scoring again and knew he wouldn’t have to worry about Boone using a righty bat once Tolle came into the game.

After falling behind Wilyer Abreu 2-0 and then going to 3-2 to begin the ninth, Bednar blew away Abreu with a 97-mph fastball. Bednar then went full again against Duran before striking him out looking with a 98-mph fastball on the inside corner. Bednar got ahead of Rafaela 0-2 and then Rafaela put a drive into the ball I thought was gone (and I think most people did) before Judge put it away to end the game.

4. For once, an ex-Yankee-tuned-Red Sox helped the Yankees to a postseason win. In 2018, the ex-Yankee trio of Nathan Eovaldi, Steve Pearce and Eduardo Nunez helped end the Yankees’ season and lead the Red Sox to a championship. Eovaldi was an awful Yankee, capable of throwing triple digits and incapable of striking anyone out. Nunez was supposed to the heir at short to Derek Jeter and the Yankees wouldn’t part with Nunez for Cliff Lee in 2010 because of that only to eventually release Nunez in 2014 to keep Yangervis Solarte out of spring training. Pearce had 30 plate appearances for the 2012 Yankees and hit .160/.300/.280. Eovaldi pitched the Red Sox to an ALDS Game 3 win over the Yankees in 2018 and became a World Series hero against the Dodgers. Nunez made an unbelievable play to save Game 4 in the ninth inning in the ALDS (a play he never would have made as a Yankee) and hit a huge home run in the World Series. Pearce was named World Series MVP.

But finally, on Wednesday, Whitlock — a pitcher the Yankees didn’t protect in the 2020 Rule 5 draft so they could protect Nick Nelson and Brooks Kriske — came through for the Yankees by walking Chisholm with two outs in the eighth. Through Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, the Yankees had been 11-4 against the Red Sox in postseason history. But from Game 4 of the 2024 ALCS through Tuesday’s Game 1, the Red Sox had gone 9-1 against the Yankees. Maybe that walk will be the turning point in righting the postseason rivalry in favor of the Yankees. It was a walk — Kevin Millar against Mariano Rivera — that started that 9-1 run, so maybe it’s a walk that starts a Yankees-favored future.

5. No one knows what to expect in Game 3. I think everyone knew Fried and Garrett Crochet would provide ace-like performances in Game 1 and they did. I think Yankees fans knew Rodon wouldn’t put the team on his back and pitch them to a season-saving win in Game 1 and he didn’t, and I think Red Sox feared Bello’s bad September would carry over into October and it did. In Game 3, you’re getting a 24-year-old rookie starter for the Yankees with 14 career starts going against a 23-year-old rookie starter for the Red Sox with four career starts. They could both poop their pants in the first inning and this could become a bullpen game, or they could both show the impressive dominance they possess and why they are in the spot they are to start a win-or-go-home playoff game at this stage of their career.

Schlittler will be the first right-handed starter the Red Sox have faced in the series, so that means a lineup we haven’t seen yet from the Red Sox. With Early being a lefty, it makes things interesting for the Yankees and Boone will do with his lineup.

6. As I wrote earlier, Boone is reactionary. He had to deal with a shitstorm for pulling Fried on Tuesday, so he let Rodon go too long on Wednesday and it nearly ended their season. He had to steal with the shitstorm of not playing Rice and Chisholm on Tuesday, so I guarantee you both will be in the lineup on Thursday. I would put out the ‘A’ lineup with the only change being Amed Rosario for Ryan MacMahon. I would use righty-lefty alternation throughout to avoid giving Cora perfect lanes for his relievers if Early doesn’t go long.

Trent Grisham, CF
Aaron Judge, RF
Cody Bellinger, LF
Giancarlo Stanton, DH
Ben Rice, 1B
Amed Rosario, 3B
Jazz Chishom, 2B
Anthony Volpe, SS
Austin Wells, C

The only back-to-back lefties in that lineup are Wells to Grisham, but there’s a chance Early never gets to that part of the order. Either he’s dominant and gets to stay in or he starts off like Bello and Cora removes him immediately. Cora only let Bello throw 28 pitches and if he had thrown more, the Yankees may have exploded and put the game away early. Cora will have an even quicker hook in Game 3 than he did in Game 2 (and 28 pitches is as quick as it gets) because the season is on the line and it wasn’t for the Red Sox yesterday and he still removed Bello in the second. Boone will have to have an equally quick hook with Schlittler if things aren’t going well.

Boone’s plan for every game is laid out in his brain well before the game, and if he has to deviate from the plan, he doesn’t know what to do. We saw it in Game 1. His plan was to get exactly what he got from Fried and then go Weaver to Williams to Bednar to end the game. Once Weaver fucked it up, Boone wasn’t sure what to do, so he stayed with the plan even with the Yankees trailing.

If the Yankees had taken the lead in Game 2 earlier than the bottom of the eighth, it’s likely Boone would have screwed it up . But because they scored so late in the game and there was just one inning of outs to get, he was able to go to Bednar and not have to think. For the Yankees to win, they need Boone to not have to think because is he has to, he will make the wrong decision nearly every time. Boone would lose the lottery if you gave him the winning numbers.

7. Because Boone used his best relievers in Game 162 on Sunday (when he didn’t need to since the Blue Jays were routing the Rays by the time the Yankees’ late innings began), Cruz, Williams and Bednar have now all pitched three times in the last four days. Here are their pitch counts each day. Weaver threw on Sunday and Tuesday, but not Wednesday. I don’t think there’s any Yankees fan who wants to see Weaver in Game 3, but it’s high likely he will be in there unless Schlittler goes out gives six or seven innings.

Even if Schlittler does go out and give six innings, there will still be nine outs to get. In theory you could go Cruz, Williams Bednar and I think thats what the Boone would do, but the Red Sox have now seen these three multiple times in a short span. They have seen everything they have to offer.

Cruz has faced Story twice, Bregman twice, Rafaela twice, Sogard twice and Yoshida twice. I would be hesitant to let Cruz face any of them a third time.

Williams has faced Narvaez twice, Abreu, Duran, Rafaela, Bregman and Nathaniel Lowe.

Bednar has faced Sogard, Yoshida, Story, Bregman, Lowe, Abreu, Duran and Rafaela. He has faced nearly the entire Red Sox’ lineup once.

Cruz’s splitter, Williams changeup and Bednar’s curveball/fastball mix will undoubtedly have less effect in Game 3 than they did in Game 1 or Game 2. That’s what happens with relievers in short series. They get fatigued and hitters know their release points and pitches. Go look at the quotes from Yankees relievers following the 2019 ALCS when they couldn’t get any length out of their starters and the Astros started to hit Chad Green, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino and Aroldis Chapman as the series went on. They all mentioned being fatigued in that series loss.

Weaver is going to pitch in Game 3. Tim Hill or Mark Leiter Jr. could appear Everything is on the table, including getting outs from Camilo Doval. The easiest path to a win and advancing is for Schlittler to go out and throw the ball like he did in his last two starts of the season, both against the Orioles. (12.2 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 15 K, 1 HR). The difference is the Orioles had nothing to play for in those games and are home for a reason, while the Red Sox have everything to play for on Thursday to avoid going home.

I don’t like the Yankees having to face a lefty, especially one that has 29 strikeouts to just four walks and no home runs allowed in his first 19 1/3 career innings, considering the Yankees offense lives off of walks and home runs. Yes, three of Early’s four starts came against the A’s (twice) and Rays, but he pitched well against the Tigers on Saturday (5.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7K) when the Tigers still hadn’t clinched a postseason berth.

8. The one thing that gives me optimism in the offense is that Judge, Bellinger and Stanton haven’t done anything yet. Sure, Judge has four singles and Bellinger has a pair of singles as well, but the trio has combined for zero extra-base hits. Stanton doesn’t even have a hit yet. The longer the Yankees go in the postseason without those three hitting the ball in the gap or over the fence, the more optimistic I become about the Yankees’ chances this October. Especially, Bellinger and Stanton. Those two have come up in enormous spots in the first two games of this series and have failed each time. Bellinger and Stanton in the first inning in Game 1. Stanton in the ninth inning in Game 1. Bellinger in the third inning in Game 2. Stanton in the sixth inning in Game 2. Bellinger in the seventh inning in Game 2. The biggest moments in both games have found the duo and each time they haven’t done anything. I really believe that will change in Game 3. If it does, the Yankees will be guaranteed to play on Saturday in Toronto. If it doesn’t, someone else will have to do it.

9. I truly think Judge will have his signature postseason if the Yankees’ season continues past Game 3. In past postseasons, Judge has looked lost from his first at-bat. He has only hit singles in this series, but he got one each off of Crochet, Chapman and Bello — three household names. He’s been on base four times in eight plate appearances and has only struck out twice against top-tier arms. If the monster hit doesn’t come for Judge in Game 3 and the Yankees are able to advance, the Blue Jays are in for a world of shit in the ALDS. For someone who has been as critical of Judge in the playoffs as anyone in the world, I really believe this postseason could be his 2009 Alex Rodriguez postseason.

10. This series is playing out exactly as I expected and it’s why I would have had enormous confidence playing the Red Sox in any other format other than a best-of-3. They have arguably the best starting pitcher and closer in the game, but nothing else. Their second-best starter lasted 28 pitches, their third-best starter is out with an elbow injury. They are turning to a kid with four career starts to save their season and their lineup is full of names and players who could be sitting next to you right now and you would have no idea who they are. They are built for a three-game series and nothing else, and if the Yankees fail to advance against an inferior and banged-up roster with all games in the series in their own building, it will be more humiliating than any postseason loss under Boone, including the 2018 ALDS embarrassment, the 2022 ALCS sweep or the 2024 World Series disaster.

The Yankees have to save their season and end the Red Sox’ in Game 3. They have to.