1. Playing their fourth elimination game in eight days, the Yankees produced two hits through the first six innings of their 5-2 loss in Game 4 of the ALDS. It was the kind of weak offensive performance the Yankees have provided so many times over the year in the postseason and the kind of offensive performance Yankees fans have come to expect from the Yankees in the postseason.

2. The Yankees scored one run in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series and one run in Game 1 of the ALDS. They were being no-hit and shut out into the sixth inning of Game 2 of the ALDS until the Blue Jays removed their starter after just 78 pitches because they were sitting on a 12-0 lead. The Yankees’ bats came to life late in Game 2 of the ALDS, but once the Blue Jays decided enough was enough and brought in their high-quality relievers, the Yankees’ stat-padding fun ended.

3. Thanks to two defensive miscues and Aaron Judge hitting a three-run home run against a pitch that physics says shouldn’t be able to be hit for a home run, the Yankees were able to win Game 3 and save their season. But the offense that eked out a three-game series win against the vastly inferior Red Sox and got stifled in Toronto showed up for Game 4 and the season ended.

4. Cam Schlittler was much better against the Blue Jays his third time facing them this season and deserved a much better line than two earned runs over 6 1/3 innings, but his defense failed him, specifically Jazz Chisholm who committed a game-changing error at second base that led to the Blue Jays’ third and fourth runs and put the game out of reach.

5. John Schneider went to eight relievers across the nine innings in Game 4 in a full-blown bullpen game, and aside from a short porch home run by Ryan McMahon off Mason Fluharty and an RBI single from Judge off of Jeff Hoffman, an overworked and fatigued bullpen shut down the Yankees with ease.

6. In what should be his final game as a Yankee, Trent Grisham made everyone realize it wouldn’t have mattered if he played over Alex Verdugo last postseason. Grisham went 0-for-5 with two strikeouts in Game 4. He finished the postseason 4-for-29 with 10 strikeouts. He didn’t drive in a single run in the seven games.

After saving the season with his three-run home run in Game 3, Judge went 2-for-4 with a walk in Game 4. Judge finally showed up for a postseason and no one else did. I don’t feel sorry for Judge’s postseason going to waste given his postseasons performances before this year. This was an enormous missed opportunity for him to finally win it all and he will be 34 a month into next season. He will have to do the same thing next October and maybe a single everyday-playing teammate will join him.

Cody Bellinger entered this postseason with a .661 OPS for his postseason career after six trips to the playoffs with the Dodgers. Bellinger stayed true to who he has been in October as he posted a .651 OPS this October, failed in every big moment and the only ball he hit out was in the meaningless late innings of Game 2. No one should be surprised Bellinger was awesome in the regular season and bad in the postseason, considering he put up nearly an identical OPS this October as he had in 69 previous postseason games. He has been a bad performer in now 76 playoff games.

I can’t say anything critical of Giancarlo Stanton for hitting .192/.267/.269 without a home run this postseason. In all of his postseasons with the Yankees, Stanton has always been the one bat you can count on with a career postseason OPS of .926, 52 points higher than his career regular-season OPS. He gets a pass for this October for what he did last year and previous years.

Chisholm’s glove cost the Yankees a realistic chance of coming back to win Game 4, but it was his bat that cost them the entire postseason. It will be hard to find a player who talks more and backs it up less than Chisholm who went out of his way to tell every microphone put in front of his face this season that the Yankees would win the division and go to the World Series. They failed to win the division and they were eliminated two rounds before the World Series. Chisholm pouted about being benched in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series and then was in the starting lineup the rest of October and hit .182/.280/.318, after he hit .182/.250/.309 last October. The lone run Chisholm drove in this October came on his solo home run in Game 3. In Game 4, Chisholm hit into a double play after Stanton led off the fourth with a walk and grounded out with two on to end the sixth.

Paul Goldschmidt gets a pass as he went 4-for-9 with a walk in limited playing time.

Ben Rice doesn’t get a pass. If opposing pitchers don’t throw Rice a fastball, all of his astonishing Statcast metrics become worthless. Rice didn’t stand a chance against the splitters of Kevin Gausman and Trey Yesavage in Games 1 and 2 and went hitless in Game 3 before being benched in Game 4. The only hits Rice provided in the series came in the meaningless innings of Game 3 when every Yankee improved their series slash lines from atrocious to abysmal.

Austin Wells continues to not be any good. After striking out in 22 of 55 plate appearances and hitting .120/.200/.460 in the postseason last year, Wells hit .227/.261/.227 in the postseason this year. Five hits, none for extra bases.

Remember with a few weeks left in the season when Aaron Boone told everyone the starting shortstop competition would be a daily thing? I do. Remember when Jose Caballero hit .306/.405/.500 during the competition, as he started at shortstop during the Yankees’ 12-game gauntlet against the Astros, Blue Jays, Tigers and Red Sox? I do. Remember when Boone strategically let Volpe only play against the Twins, Orioles and White Sox over the last couple weeks of the season to boost his performance, and he posted an OPS of .601 more than 300 points lower than Caballero’s .905? I do. And remember despite all of that, Boone still made Volpe the starting shortstop for every game of the postseason? I do.

Volpe represents everything wrong with the Yankees from what he stands for organizationally to his actual play. They passed on the deepest shortstop free-agent class in the history of the game during the primes of most of their roster because of him. He has been immune to a demotion or even a benching (it’s only ever a day or two off). He is shielded from the media and protected to no end by the manager and front office in a way no other Yankees prospect or Yankee period has ever been. Volpe didn’t get removed for a pinch hitter in the ninth inning of Game 4 because Boone thought it would give the Yankees a better chance to stage a four-run comeback. Boone hit for Volpe because he didn’t want him to be exposed to a ruthless, angry crowd if he were to strike out for a fourth time after the crowd booed him in a way typically reserved for opposing players like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Jose Altuve after Volpe’s third strikeout of the game.

Volpe may be a major-league baseball player, but he doesn’t possess the ability or talent needed to be one. Any bit of success he achieves is a product of him playing every day no matter what. If you were to take a Double-A player and give them the endless leash and everyday playing time Volpe receives, they too would have flashes of success. But like Volpe, they too would look overmatched the majority of the time. Volpe went 1-for-15 in the series with 11 strikeouts. The Blue Jays as a team struck out 13 times in Games 1, 2 and Game 4 combined. Before Volpe’s third strikeout in Game 4, John Smoltz mentioned how Volpe was swinging three weighted bats in the on-deck circle and he had never seen something like that. FOX then showed Volpe’s bizarre preparation and he went on to strike out on four pitches.

Volpe has been the worst everyday offensive player in the majors since his debut, and yet, there’s a better chance the Yankees stop wearing pinstripes at home in 2026 than there is that Volpe isn’t the starting shortstop on Opening Day 2026.

McMahon gets a pass. The Yankees knew they were trading for a below-league-average hitter in McMahon, but arguably the best defensive third baseman and he fit that billing during the regular season. In the postseason he had impressive at-bats, only struck out twice in 15 plate appearances and provided an .833 OPS.

Schlittler’s Game 3 performance against the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series and Judge’s home run in Game 3 of the ALDS were the two highlights of the very short postseason, but right up there with them was Jasson Dominguez’s pinch-hit, leadoff double in the ninth inning of Game 4, which served as a nice ‘Fuck You’ to Boone and the front office for not using him until there were three outs left in the season. The Yankees did everything they could to screw up Dominguez’s development and future this season by moving him to a position he never played, then pulling him early for defensive purposes for the first part of the season, then not allowing him to play against left-handed pitches and finally benching him outright as he started just four games in September. I hope the Yankees trade him in the offseason and he goes somewhere else and becomes the star we were told he would be with the Yankees. If he’s not, the Yankees will screw with his development again next season.

7. The bullpen did its job in the postseason, and again in Game 4, but the starting pitching outside of Schlittler was a disaster in the ALDS. After Max Fried shut down an anemic Red Sox lineup in the Wild Card Series, he was blasted by the Blue Jays in Toronto. He came to the Yankees with a 5.10 career postseason ERA and pitched to a 6.75 ERA this postseason.

When Carlos Rodon went down in spring training in 2023 and said if it were the playoffs he would pitch and not go on the injured list, I laughed. If you need seven shutout innings against the Angels in July, Rodon is your guy. If you need to win a start against a team with a winning record or a postseason game, he’s the last guy you want. Rodon pitched to a 5.60 ERA in the postseason last year, pitching well in just one game (Game 1 of the ALCS) and pitched to a 9.72 ERA this postseason. He now has a 7.53 ERA in his postseason career.

Luis Gil was only able to last 2 2/3 innings in his only postseason start after lasting only four innings in both of his postseason starts a year ago. Last offseason, Gil was coming off the only healthy season of his career and had won Rookie of the Year. His value was never higher and the Yankees decided to not move him. He made only seven starts this season due to injury, walked batters at a higher rate than last season when he led the league in walks and stopped striking anyone out. His value has crumbled and he will turn 28 during next season.

8. So who was good in the Yankees’ brief postseason appearance? Aaron Judge, Cam Schlittler, Jasson Dominguez, Ryan McMahon, Paul Goldschmidt, Amed Rosario and the relievers not named Luke Weaver or Paul Blackburn. When the good from your offense is one everyday player, three platoon players and one player who was buried on the bench, it’s a problem. When the good from your rotation is a single starter, it’s a problem. When a bullpen that’s performing well only pitched with the lead in one of four games in the ALDS, it’s a problem. When you put it all together, you get a team whose postseason lasted seven games with four of them being elimination games.

9. The Boone Yankees were unable to do what his two predecessors were able to in erasing an 0-2 ALDS deficit and Boone’s unbreakable Yankees record of most seasons allowed to manage the team without a championship has added another year to it. Instead of the Yankees playing on Friday in Toronto, they now won’t play until March 25 in San Francisco.

10. The Yankees spent the majority of the season showing they weren’t good enough to compete with the league’s best, but they did just enough to fool everyone for as long as they could. It’s no longer “right in of front of them” because there’s nothing left in front of them. The “tomorrow” the manager and his players always refer to after each loss isn’t coming. The 2025 Yankees’ season ended the same way every Yankees season has for the last 16 years, including every season under Boone: eliminated.

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.