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 may appear for the first time. Mark Leiter Jr. may even make an appearance. 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.

Every fear of the Yankees having to play in the best-of-3, Wild Card Series against the Red Sox came to fruition in their Game 1 loss on Tuesday night. The worst-case scenario for the Yankees this postseason was not winning the division and drawing the Red Sox and the result for the series opener was predictable. The way the game played out was predictable. Every weakness the Yankees possess made an appearance in Game 1 and now they will play for their season in Game 2.

Let’s go through what I wrote about Game 1 leading up to it (italicized) and what transpired in Game 1.

If the Yankees had to play the Red Sox in a best-of-5, my confidence would be much greater than it is now. If they had to play them in a best-of-7, my confidence would be through the roof. But in a three-game series? I don’t know if there is any measurable confidence in this situation. That’s not because the Yankees are an inferior team. Quite the opposite. When they’re not beating themselves, the Yankees are a much better team than the Red Sox, especially with Rafael Devers in San Francisco and Roman Anthony on the injured list. The difference is the Red Sox have Garrett Crochet and the Yankees don’t.

I was right to have little confidence in the Yankees winning Game 1, but as I sat in my seat at Yankee Stadium prior to first pitch, I let myself think they could win, and when the Yankees led off the game with two hits against Crochet and Anthony Volpe hit a solo home run off him in the second, the thought grew. Maybe Crochet wouldn’t be his regular-season self in his first postseason start. Maybe he would endure the kind of postseason struggles other dominant lefties had to start their postseason careers like his counterpart on Tuesday in Fried.

Unfortunately, Crochet didn’t become pre-Yankees Fried or Clayton Kershaw. The Yankees couldn’t get to Crochet with two on and no outs and the heart of their order due up in the first and the Volpe home run wasn’t a sign of things to come, it was a wake-up call for Crochet. After the Volpe home run, the Yankees didn’t have a baserunner until Volpe singled in the eighth.

There are two ways to beat Crochet: multi-run home runs or working the count. The first is extremely hard to count on, but Crochet can be prone to the long ball. Run into a three-run home and you can win Game 1. Try to string together walks and singles and you will be playing for your season on Wednesday. Because planning for or counting on home runs isn’t wise, the Yankees’ best course of action is to tire Crochet, get his pitch count up and hope he’s out after six innings. Crochet had a 3.55 ERA in September, which was his highest ERA for a month this season and after leading the league in innings and strikeouts, there has to be some level of fatigue involved.

The Yankees couldn’t get baserunners against Crochet after the first inning and a solo home run was never going to be enough to win the game. Working the count didn’t go well either because you have to be able to make contact and foul off pitches to do that and the Yankees racked up 11 strikeouts in 7 2/3 innings against Crochet. Crochet retired 17 straight Yankees from the Volpe home run in the second until the Volpe single in the eighth. His pitches by inning: 13, 16, 20, 14, 18, 13, 6, 17. The sixth and seventh innings were the missed opportunities to get to Crochet or get him out of the game, and six Yankees were retired on 19 pitches. Crochet was every bit as good as I feared he could be. The Yankees went 0-5 in games started by Crochet in 2025.

I expect Fried to pitch well because he has to pitch well. If he doesn’t then nothing else matters. The career 5.10 postseason ERA version of Fried can’t show up. He needs to go out and set the tone and have a clean first inning and give the top of the order a chance to put the pressure on the Red Sox. This type of game is why the Yankees signed Fried and because of that he should be expected to go out there and either best or match Crochet.

Fried did his job. He got through the first inning unscathed and gave the Yankees a chance to take an early lead just like I asked, but Cody Bellinger struck out and Giancarlo Stanton hit into an inning-ending double play.

The decision to pull Fried was obviously the wrong one, not just in hindsight, but in real time as well. Fried looked like he may be tiring at the end of the sixth, but he got an inning-ending double play, returned to the mound in the seventh and got the first out there as well. Ceddane Rafaela and Nick Sogard were due up. Rafaela owns a career .685 OPS. Nick Sogard has a career .656 OPS. The fact Sogard was starting in a postseason game was preposterous. The fact that Boone was scared to let his high-priced ace face him was even more so.

Boone couldn’t wait to get his hands on the game. He couldn’t wait to hop out of the dugout and do his strut to the mound and call on his shitty bullpen, and the first shitty reliever he called on was Luke Weaver. Weaver got ahead of Rafaela 0-2 and then nine pitches later walked him. He couldn’t retire Sogard and pinch hitter Masataka Yoshida drove in two runs on the first pitch he saw. Weaver faced three batters, retired none, erased the Yankees’ lead and put them in a one-run deficit in a matter of minutes after Fried had worked so hard over 6 1/3 innings to keep the Red Sox off the board.

The Yankees lineup producing in the postseason is what keeps me up at night. No matter what happens during the regular season, the entirety of the Yankees’ season each year hinges on whether or not the bats will be there in October.

Aaron Judge continued his postseason run of being a singles hitter; Paul Goldschmidt proved he has no power left in his bat to hit for extra bases (one extra-base hit since August 26); Cody Bellinger continued his career of being a bad postseason hitter (.817 career regular-season OPS and .658 career postseason OPS); Amed Rosario’s sole purpose for being on the team is to hit left-handed pitching and he went 0-for-3 with three groundouts to the left side; Trent Grisham may as well have batted without a bat, going 0-for-4 with four strikeouts; Austin Wells went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and Jose Caballero went 0-for-3 with one strikeout. Chisholm was the only bench player to get an at-bat and he hit a lazy fly ball against Chapman that Goldschmidt couldn’t score on because Boone forgot to pinch run Jasson Dominguez for Goldschmidt.

Stanton had a bad game. He had the most important at-bat of the game and struck out. Stanton strikes out a lot. He always has. But he has been the one Yankee to consistently show up in every postseason in this era, so I can’t be upset he didn’t come through in Game 1.

Then there’s the managerial mismatch between Boone and Alex Cora. Boone is 1-4 in the postseason against Cora and after being worried about Crochet pitching against the 2025 Yankees like 2009 Cliff Lee and the Yankees’ offense performing their annual postseason disappearing act, I’m most worried about Boone and what he’s capable of in the postseason.

Make that 1-5. Crochet pitched just like Lee, the offense didn’t show up and Boone did what he has done for eight years and seven postseasons: failed to put his players in the best possible position to succeed.

From the minute Boone filled out the lineup card until the very last out of the game, he blew every decision he had to make. Starting Grisham was foolish. Leaving Rice on the bench was idiotic. Pulling Fried against the bottom of the order was moronic. Inserting Jazz Chisholm into the game for defense instead of potential pinch-hit opportunity was shortsighted. Never letting Rice take a swing in the game was insane.

Every move Boone made, Cora was sitting there waiting to counter it. Boone pulled Fried, so Cora went to his bench against Weaver and Fernando Cruz. Boone didn’t start Rice, so Cora made sure he never got into the game by only using lefties. Boone put Chisholm into the game, so Cora made sure Chisholm didn’t get an at-bat against a righty. Cora knew if he tried to bridge Crochet to Aroldis Chapman with Garrett Whitlock that Rice would immediately hit, so he never allowed it. He was going to use Crochet for as long as he could and then go to Chapman and let those two decide the game. He wasn’t going to let Rice or Chisholm or any Yankees lefty bat decide the game against a righty.

I don’t know how many championships the Yankees would have since 2018 if Boone hade been the Red Sox’ manager and Cora the Yankees’ but I know it’s more than zero. Boone’s in-game management is always poor whether it’s late April or early August, and in the postseason when every decision is heightened, everyone can see just how bad he is at his job.

I like to say the Yankees need to outhit their own manager to win games to prevent him from having an impact on close games. That’s not possible in the playoffs where games are low scoring and close. Every decision Boone makes from the moment he starts to fill out his lineup card until the final out of each postseason game is crucial, and he has been incapable of handling the pressure that comes with making many consecutive correct decisions, which is what it takes to win in October.

The Yankees can’t slug their way to wins in the postseason because there are no bad teams or bad pitchers in the postseason. And because they can’t slug their way to wins, they can’t outhit their manager or their bullpen. And because they can’t outhit their manager or their bullpen, managerial decisions and relief appearances become that much more important, and the Yankees failed to provide offense, make correct personnel decisions or get outs once Fried left the game.

For six months and 162 games the Yankees told us all that they are a team that beats up on bad teams, can’t beat good teams or hit great starting pitching, can’t properly strategize and can’t get outs from the bullpen and Yankees fans somehow thought the 48 hours from the end of the regular season to the start of the postseason would change their identity. Fans bought into their 11-2 finish to the regular season despite the Twins, Orioles and White Sox not being part of the postseason. Maybe now after 163 games everyone will believe the Yankees when they show they are nothing more than bullies who beat up on bad pitching on bad teams and nothing more.

It took one postseason game for the Yankees to be put on the brink of elimination. Maybe this season will serve as a lesson to the organization that all 162 games matter, as had they won one more game from March through September they would be waiting to find out who their opponent is on Saturday instead of potentially being three days into their offseason on Saturday.

Following the game, Boone was reminded that the team that has lost Game 1 in the Wild Card Series has never won the series. He got a big smirk on his face and with a sarcastic tone responded, “We’re going to show up tomorrow and I expect us to do pretty well,” as if this team or any team under him has ever proven to do anything other than lie down in a postseason series against a non-AL Central team.

Carlos Rodon gets the ball in Game 2 and will pitch to save the season. If he can’t save it, at least Max Fried will be well rested for Opening Day.

1. Here are facts that should be used to build the Yankees’ Game 1 lineup against Garrett Crochet:

• Paul Goldschmidt hasn’t hit lefties (or anyone) in months. He has one extra-base hit (a double) since August 26.
• Amed Rosario is 3-for-6 with a home run against Crochet, which is as good as it gets against the lefty. Rosario should get the most possible plate appearances until Crochet is removed and then he can be removed as well.
• Ryan McMahon hit .184/.271/.263 against lefties this season. All lefties. Not just Crochet. So if he put up a .534 OPS against lefties with bad lefties included, he can’t play against Crochet. It doesn’t matter how good his glove is or that Max Fried is on the mound. He’s unplayable against lefties.
• Ben Rice is 1-for-8 against Crochet with a double, which may not seem very good, but of the seven outs Rice has made against Crochet, none have been strikeouts. As a lefty, being able to put the ball in play every time against Crochet is impressive. He should be playing.
• Austin Wells homered and doubled off Crochet back in June at Yankee Stadium, so there’s the possibility of success for him against the dominant lefty. Because of the Red Sox’ potential running game, Wells has to play for defensive purposes.
• Jose Caballero had an .813 OPS against lefties this season. He has to play.
• Jazz Chisholm is a putrid matchup against Crochet, even before you factor in the hit by pitch Chisholm suffered on Saturday that kept him out of the lineup on Sunday.

2. Because of all these facts, this is the lineup I proposed for the Yankees for Game 1, knowing full well the actual lineup won’t come close to it:

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

This lineup may seem insane because I’m stacking three lefties in a row at the bottom of the order against Crochet, which sets up a magnificent lane for him to get outs, but the disparity in numbers for righties against him and lefties is so great that you need all righties at the top to get them the most plate appearances possible. (Righties have a .654 OPS against him and lefties have a .455 OPS against him.) Get the righties as many plate appearances against him as you can, and then remove them as you see fit. Trent Grisham for Rosario when a righty comes in. McMahon for Caballero or Volpe when a righty comes in. Goldschmidt for Rice for defense when Rice is guaranteed to not bat again.

3. Following the Yankees’ workout at the Yankee Stadium yesterday, it looks like Goldschmidt will be in the lineup, and that means he will likely bat leadoff. This is a problem because Goldschmidt hasn’t hit Crochet (2-for-15) and hasn’t hit anyone — lefties or righties — for months. The narrative he hits lefties well hasn’t been true for a while, and any positive stats he has against lefties are propped up by his early-season performance. Goldschmidt has been on a personal free fall since the beginning of May, and he’s not someone you want to be giving the most plate appearances in a game to at the top of the lineup.

4. The Red Sox’ lineup is full of guys who have never done this before. Here is the Red Sox’ postseason experience for position players:

Alex Bregman: 99 games and 434 plate appearances from 2017 through 2024
Nathaniel Lowe: 18 games and 75 plate appearances in 2020 and 2023
Trevor Story: Five games and 22 plate appearance in 2017 and 2018
Abraham Toro: One game and one plate appearance in 2020
Rob Refsnyder: One game and three plate appearances in 2015

So there’s Bregman, who has been a postseason staple since 2017, Lowe, who had one run two years ago, Story, who hasn’t been in the playoffs in seven years, Toro, who played in one game in front of an empty stadium, and Refsnyder, who last appeared in the playoffs as the starting second baseman for the Yankees in the 2015 wild-card game. Not one position player on the Red Sox played in the 2021 postseason for the Red Sox, which was the last time they played in the postseason.

5. Crochet has never pitched in the playoffs and neither has Game 2 starter Brayan Bello. Aroldis Chapman’s postseason career is defined by losing Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS and Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS for the Yankees.

The Red Sox are a roster of inexperienced postseason players and pitchers. The biggest games most of the roster has ever been involved in were the games this past week when they were trying to clinch a wild-card berth. That’s not to say they won’t play well in the postseason, it’s just that no one knows if they will or not because they have never done it before.

6. Then again, no one really knows if the Yankees will play well in it either. The only bat that can be trusted to show up is Giancarlo Stanton since he always shows up. He can’t be the only one to show up though because Juan Soto isn’t here to carry the club with him. Aaron Judge has to show up.

I keep hearing about how eventually Judge will have the kind of postseason run Alex Rodriguez had after years of struggling to duplicate his regular-season performance in the postseason. If not now, when?

7. The reason Judge is a 33-year-old future Hall of Famer and arguably the greatest right-handed hitter of all time without a championship to his name is because of himself. We know the Yankees go as Judge goes and when Judge doesn’t go, the Yankees don’t go. Look no further than this season:

From Opening Day through June 12, Judge hit .392/.488/.776 from and the Yankees went 42-25 and were atop the American League.

From June 13 through August 23, Judge hit .236/.378/.533 and the Yankees went 23-29 and for a moment fell out of a postseason spot.

From August 24 through the end of the season, Judge hit .349/.513/.743 and the Yankees went 25-8 and finished tied for the best record in the AL with the best run differential in the AL.

The fact that Judge could have a .911 OPS from June 13 through August 23 and the Yankees go 23-29 and fall down the standings is because the Yankees can’t afford for Judge to be just a superstar, he has to be an all-time great. That’s how this roster and lineup are constructed and have been for nearly his entire career. So again, if Judge hits, the Yankees win. If he doesn’t they lose. (Last season was the exception and not the rule because Soto was here to make up for Judge’s postseason shortcomings alongside Stanton.)

8. Judge is going to be put to the postseason test immediately in Game 1. Here are his plate appearances in order against Crochet this season:

Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Home run
Strikeout
Strikeout
Flyout
Strikeout
Strikeout
Home run

9. I haven’t written much yesterday or today about Fried because I expect him to pitch well because he has to pitch well. If he doesn’t then nothing else matter. If Fried goes out and has a 24-pitch first inning and the Red Sox have a two-run lead before the Yankees bat in the game then just pack up the bats and balls and try again on Wednesday in Game 2. The career 5.10 postseason ERA version of Fried can’t show up. He needs to go out and set the tone and have a clean first inning and give the top of the order a chance to put the pressure on the Red Sox. This type of game is why the Yankees signed Fried and because of that he should be expected to go out there and either best or match Crochet.

10. I’m nervous. How can you not be if you’re a Yankees fan? When I sit down in my seat at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night I will feel the type of feel only postseason baseball can bring out in baseball fans. I expect the Yankees to win this series because I don’t want to envision this series ending any other way. At the end of today, the Yankees will either be playing for their season tomorrow or playing tomorrow to play on Saturday. It better be the latter because I can’t handle the former.

1. The Yankees are the best team in the American League, but they didn’t play like the best team in the AL from mid-June to mid-August and it cost them the division. During those two months, they lost series to the Angels, Reds, Mets, Marlins, Rangers and Astros and went 1-6 against the Red Sox and 1-6 against the Blue Jays. They kept DJ LeMahieu on the roster and played him at second base over Jazz Chisholm, let Devin Williams blow games at a 2024 Clay Holmes-like pace and allowed Anthony Volpe to play every day as arguably the worst everyday hitter in the league for a third straight year. That’s why the Yankees lost the division, not because of anything that happened on Sunday.

The Yankees have no one to blame other than themselves for having to play a best-of-3 against their worst possible matchup this week. Not the Rays, who sat their three best hitters in Game 162 on Sunday with the Yankees needing them to win to win the division. Not the Tigers, who sat their best players as well with the Yankees needing them to win to avoid the Red Sox. The Yankees did this to themselves when they started the season 2-8 against the Red Sox and when they got swept in a four-game series in Toronto during the first week of July.

Even though the Blue Jays kept the Yankees in the division race until the last game of the season, and even though the Tigers had a chance to win the second wild card over the Red Sox, in the end, it’s Yankees-Red Sox, the scenario we all figured it would be for the last nearly three months. The worst-case scenario.

2. If the Yankees had to play the Red Sox in a best-of-5, my confidence would be much greater than it is now. If they had to play them in a best-of-7, my confidence would be through the roof. But in a three-game series? I don’t know if there is any measurable confidence in this situation.

That’s not because the Yankees are an inferior team. Quite the opposite. When they’re not beating themselves, the Yankees are a much better team than the Red Sox, especially with Rafael Devers in San Francisco and Roman Anthony on the injured list. The difference is the Red Sox have Garrett Crochet and the Yankees don’t.

3. Crochet made four starts this season against the Yankees and the Red Sox won all of them. In 27 1/3 innings against the Yankees, Crochet allowed just four walks to 39 strikeouts. The Yankees hit .200/.231/.370 against him for a .601 OPS. J.C. Escarra had a .629 OPS this season, so Crochet turned the Yankees collectively into a worse hitter than Escarra.

If Crochet goes out and dominates the Yankees like he just did the Blue Jays in his final start of the season with eight scoreless innings, the Yankees will face elimination in Game 2 with Carlos Rodon pitching for their season. Rodon may have had a great year, leading the league in hits per nine innings with a measly 6.1, but I have seen enough Rodon over three years to know I don’t want him on the mound with the season on the line.

4. Enter, Max Fried. Fried was signed to win the exact game he will start on Tuesday, and he has to be as good as Crochet on Tuesday for as long as Crochet. Rob Refsnyder and Connor Wong can’t be hitting doubles down the left-field line against Fried. He has to be at his absolute best to avoid needing to trust the emotionally-unstable-on-the-mound Rodon to save the season on Wednesday.

5. Two weeks ago, the Yankees lost to Crochet at Fenway Park, and in that game, Aaron Boone had Austin Slater bat leadoff. Slater repaid him by going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. Slater is 3-for-25 with a .240 OPS as a Yankee. He’s not a major-league player, let alone someone who should be on the postseason roster or playing in a postseason game. In Crochet’s other starts, Jasson Dominguez, DJ LeMahieu, Oswald Peraza and Pablo Reyes started games. The former doesn’t get to play anymore and the latter three aren’t even on the team. But it’s not like the Yankees’ regulars hit Crochet. No one hits Crochet.

After looking at every Yankees individual plate appearances against Crochet this season, this is the lineup I believe would give them the best chance to win on Tuesday:

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

This lineup may seem insane because I’m stacking three lefties in a row at the bottom of the order against Crochet, which sets up a magnificent lane for him to get outs, but the disparity in numbers for righties against him and lefties is so great that you need all righties at the top to get them the most at-bats possible. (Righties have a .654 OPS against him and lefties have a .455 OPS against him.) Get the righties as many at-bats against him as you can, and then remove them as you see fit. Trent Grisham for Rosario when a righty comes in. Ryan McMahon for Caballero or Volpe when a righty comes in. Paul Goldschmidt for Rice for defense when Rice is guaranteed to not have another at-bat.

I’m willing to bat three lefties in order against Crochet because Rice has never struck out in eight at-bats against him and has a double. Seven groundouts in eight at-bats with a double and no strikeouts is impressive against Crochet. Maybe Chisholm can work a walk and use his legs or go the other way for a single and not think he’s going to plant one in the second deck off Crochet? And Wells has a home run and double off Crochet, so the ability to get to him is there.

I realize the Yankees would never use this lineup. It makes too much sense for an organization and front office that started Kevin Brown in Game 7 of the 2004 ALCS and used Deivi Garcia as an opener and J.A. Happ as a bulk reliever n Game 2 of the 2022 ALDS. Instead, Boone will bat Goldschmidt at the top of the order (despite the narrative Goldschmidt hits lefties well being untrue for months now) and use lefty-right alternation throughout the bottom half and Crochet will carve them up just like he did twice in June, once in August and once in September.

6. There are two ways to beat Crochet: multi-run home runs or working the count. The first is extremely hard to count on, but Crochet can be prone to the long ball. Run into a three-run home and you can win Game 1. Try to string together walks and singles and you will be playing for your season on Wednesday. Because planning for or counting on home runs isn’t wise, the Yankees’ best course of action is to tire Crochet, get his pitch count up and hope he’s out after six innings. Crochet had a 3.55 ERA in September, which was his highest ERA for a month this season and after leading the league in innings and strikeouts, there has to be some level of fatigue involved. Here are Crochet’s innings by season:

2021: 54.1
2022: 0
2023: 12.2
2024: 146.0
2025: 205.1

That’s quite the year-over-year jump since he missed all of 2022 due to injury. This is the farthest into a season Crochet has ever pitched and this will be the biggest game he has ever pitched. He wouldn’t be the first all-world starter to poop his pants in his first taste of the postseason.

7. Fried knows a lot about pooping his pants in the postseason with a 5.10 ERA in 67 postseason innings. His postseason history was my single-biggest when the Yankees signed him. I hope he’s past it. He knows what to expect on Tuesday, having pitched (and pitched well) in a World Series clincher. The moment won’t be too big for him, and if he’s locating, he should have no problem going through the weak Red Sox lineup.

8. The Yankees lineup producing in the postseason is what keeps me up at night. No matter what happens during the regular season, the entirety of the Yankees’ season each year hinges on whether or not the bats will be there in October.

The dynastic Yankees of the late-‘90s and 2000s won in the postseason because their stars remained stars in October. When the 163rd game came, there was no drop-off in production despite only facing the top teams and elite pitching each game. Look at these regular season vs. postseason career numbers.

Derek Jeter regular season: .310/.377/.440
Derek Jeter postseason: .308/.374/.465

Bernie Williams regular season: .297/.381/.477
Bernie Williams postseason: .275/.371/.480

Paul O’Neill regular season: .288/.363/.470
Paul O’Neill postseason: .284/.363/.465

That hasn’t happened with this Yankees core. When October comes, these Yankees have always disappeared, and Aaron Judge has been as big of a problem as anyone.

Aaron Judge regular season: .288/.406/.604
Aaron Judge postseason: .205/.318/.450

Judge has the home run record. He has the captaincy. He has the long-term contract and life-changing, generational wealth. The only thing missing is a championship. Unfortunately, he’s not the only Yankee whose postseason OPS is nowhere near their regular-season OPS, and not in a good way as the only two Yankees who have a higher postseason OPS than regular-season OPS are Stanton and Volpe. They are the two hitters on the Yankees I trust most going into the postseason because Stanton always shows up and Volpe will do enough to make everyone think 2026 will be his year and then he will go on to post a .680 OPS while playing every day next season.

9. Then there’s the managerial mismatch between Boone and Alex Cora. Boone is 1-4 in the postseason against Cora and after being worried about Crochet pitching against the 2025 Yankees like 2009 Cliff Lee and the Yankees’ offense performing their annual postseason disappearing act, I’m most worried about Boone and what he’s capable of in the postseason.

Boone has been exceptionally bad in the bad postseason. In his first postseason in 2018, in the pivotal Game 3 at home, his starting pitcher didn’t know the start time of the game. In that same game, he let that starting pitcher go back out for a third inning despite giving up piss missiles all over the place in the first two innings. By the time he decided to make a pitching change, the Yankees were down 3-0 and the bases were loaded with no outs. Despite having a stable of strikeout arms in his bullpen, he went to a starter with mediocre strikeout ability and it ended in the Yankees suffering their most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history.

The following night, facing elimination, he let CC Sabathia face the entire Red Sox lineup a second time because he liked the matchup of Sabathia against Jackie Bradley Jr., who was batting ninth. The Yankees were eliminated.

The next October, he used Happ in relief in extra innings in Game 2 of the ALCS. Carlos Correa walked off the Yankees and the Yankees went 1-4 over the final five games of the series.

In 2020, there was the Garcia-Happ debacle in the ALDS.

In 2021, he led the odds-on favorite in the AL to a third-place finish in the division and a fifth-place finish in the AL. Their postseason lasted nine innings (and really just a half-inning of those nine thanks to Gerrit Cole).

In 2022, he changed his starting shortstop daily, somehow made Clarke Schmidt the first guy out of the bullpen in Game 1 of the ALCS, kept batting Josh Donaldson fifth and eventually used video from the 2004 Yankees’ ALCS collapse to motivate his own Yankees team.

Last year, his decision to have Nestor Cortes face Freddie Freeman will be part of postseason promos and lore for as long as baseball is played.

The Boone Yankees are 22-23 in the postseason. His Yankees have never won a series against a non-AL Central team. A lot of it is because of the offense’s annual disappearing act, but Boone hasn’t done anything to elevate the chances of his previous six postseason teams. If anything, he has hindered their chances of winning.

I like to say the Yankees need to outhit their own manager to win games to prevent him from having an impact on close games. That’s not possible in the playoffs where games are low scoring and close. Every decision Boone makes from the moment he starts to fill out his lineup card until the final out of each postseason game is crucial, and he has been incapable of handling the pressure that comes with making many consecutive correct decisions, which is what it takes to win in October.

I want nothing more than for the Yankees to win and for Boone to win. I don’t want to sit through another end-of-the-season press conference with him telling everyone how close the team is and how sweet it’s going to be once they do win it all. “The top of the mountain” as he likes to say. Just win for the first time in his eight-year tenure and the first time in 15 years for the franchise, so I can stop dreaming about the day he’s no longer employed by the team.

10. The only way for Boone and every Yankee other than Bellinger and Fried to do what they have never done is to now do what they couldn’t do over the last six months: beat the Red Sox and Blue Jays. The reason the Yankees are playing their first postseason game on Tuesday instead of Saturday is because they couldn’t beat the Red Sox and Blue Jays. They’re only guaranteed Tuesday and Wednesday as of now. To get to Saturday they’ll have to make the best of the worst-case scenario they created for themselves.

1. Sometimes I think about what kind of record the Yankees would have annually if they were a part of the AL Central. It seems unfair the Central gets an automatic postseason bid. It seems ridiculous the Tigers and Guardians both only have 86 wins at the moment when they play 39 games against the Royals, Twins and White Sox.

2. The White Sox played like the 101-loss team they are this week in the Bronx and the Yankees finished the regular season 6-1 against them. Add in the 6-0 record against the Royals and 4-2 against the Twins and the Yankees went 16-3 against the Central’s three-worst teams.

3. The Yankees’ postseason situation is no more clear today than it was before the White Sox series. If anything, it’s more confusing. The Yankees could finish as the first wild card or they could finish with the best record in the AL. They could host the Red Sox on Tuesday in a best-of-3 or the Guardians or the Tigers or the Astros. They could not play at all on Tuesday and host the winner of the AL Central-third wild-card team next Saturday in Game 1 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium. The possibilities are seemingly endless for when the Yankees will play next week and who they will play against. I have given up trying to figure out who to root for this weekend other than to root for the Yankees and against the Blue Jays and Red Sox. But maybe not too hard against the Red Sox, since you want them to not be the Yankees’ wild-card opponent, but you also want to make sure they end up in whichever side of the bracket the Yankees aren’t in.

4. I still don’t feel good about rooting for the Red Sox from Tuesday through Thursday against the Blue Jays, and if the Yankees are unable to pull off the division comeback and end up playing the Red Sox in the wild-card series next week I will feel worse about it. As I have written of late, the Red Sox in a three-game series are the only team I fear in the AL playoffs. The Yankees against any other team in a best-of-3, best-of-5 or best-of-7 would have me confident in the Yankees advancing in every scenario.

The dream scenario for the next week is the following:

The Yankees win the division and finish with the best record in the AL … and … the Blue Jays and Red Sox play in the ALDS and go the full three games with the Blue Jays winning the series … and … the Guardians and Tigers play in the ALDS and go the full three gams with the Guardians winning the series.

5. Those results would set up the two ALDS to be the Yankees against the Guardians and the Mariners against the Blue Jays. The Yankees would draw the best possible opponent in the entire AL field in the ALDS and then either play a Mariners team they went 5-1 against this season (and swept at a point in the season when they couldn’t beat anyone) or a Blue Jays team that has lost seven of nine to give the Yankees division life, is without Bo Bichette, has a weak rotation and a bad bullpen and employs one of the few managers who makes me appreciate Aaron Boone.

6. As of this moment the Yankees are the best team in the AL. They are the healthiest of the field with the deepest rotation and best overall roster. That doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t lose or that they won’t be eliminated in two games if they end up in the wild-card series. Anything can happen in a short series and when you have the baserunning and defensive history of these Yankees coupled with their bullpen trust issues and a manager who has shown no signs of progress in eight years, it’s easy to see how their season could be over a week from now. But it’s just as easy to see them returning to the World Series for the second straight year.

7. The only playoff scenario that worries me is the Yankees facing the Red Sox in the wild-card series. That’s it. Give me the Red Sox in the ALDS or ALCS and I will feel completely confident. If the Yankees aren’t eliminated in the wild-card series by the Red Sox then I don’t think they have a chance at elimination until the World Series.

8. If the Yankees play and lose to the Red Sox in the wild-card series it will hurt as bad as any postseason elimination in my lifetime because it will come at the hands of the Red Sox and because of how weak the AL field is. Having to think about what could have been all offseason had the Yankees managed or played with even a hint of urgency from mid June to mid August will be depressing. If the Yankees lose the division it will be hard not to think about every runner left on third with one out, every leadoff double stranded, every Devin Williams meltdown, every nonsensical Boone decision or the 17 games that were started by Marcus Stroman, Carlos Carrasco, Ian Hamilton and Allan Winans. If the Yankees don’t end up as the 2025 AL East champions it will be because they blew it, not because the Blue Jays won it.

9. Even with the same 90-68 record as the Blue Jays, it’s unlikely the Yankees win the division this weekend. They still need to win one more game than the Blue Jays do and facing the Orioles’ best three starters in Trevor Rogers, Tomoyuki Sugano and Kyle Bradish won’t be easy considering Rogers and Bradish thoroughly dominated the Yankees last weekend. With Max Fried and Carlos Rodon done for the regular season, the Yankees will have to win the division against two of the best starters in the league with their 3-4-5 starters. Yankees fans need to hope the Orioles offense spends the last weekend of the season in Manhattan as one would spend a weekend in Manhattan before embarking on a four-plus month vacation. The offseason awaits the Orioles on Sunday around 6 p.m. and they should get the party started by taking advantage of the city’s favorable 4 a.m. bar closures.

10. Give me Yankees wins and Blue Jays losses on Friday and Saturday and the Mariners having one less win than the Yankees at the end of play on Saturday. That would give the Yankees the East and the best record in the AL and it would make Game 163 on Sunday meaningless. Give me one meaningless day from this stressful season before the real season begins. Is that too much to ask?