The Yankees were three-hit and shutout in a 5-0 loss to the Astros in Game 3 of the ALCS and are now facing elimination for the second time in four days.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. The Yankees had a nine-game lead on the Astros for the 1-seed in the American League on June 18. From June 19 through the end of the season, the Yankees went 50-47 and the Astros went 66-31 with the Astros eventually winning the 1-seed by seven games (a 16-game swing since mid-June when the Yankees had their biggest lead over the Astros of the season). Within those remaining 97 games played by each team were seven head-to-head games, in which the Yankees went 2-5 and never led for a single pitch in any of the games. Both of their wins came on walk-off hits by Aaron Judge at Yankee Stadium.

What we have seen over the last three games and four days isn’t anything new, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise. The Astros were better than the Yankees in the regular season, they have been better than the Yankees for now eight seasons and they have been drastically better than them through in this series. It’s why I wrote things recently like …

I don’t expect the Yankees with their injuries, first-round bullpen usage and schedule to beat the Astros. The Astros were the better team in the regular season (especially against the Yankees having never trailed them in their seven head-to-head games) and they are set up to be the better team in the postseason. The Yankees needed to win the 1-seed in the American League to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to sweep the Guardians to have a chance to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to beat the Guardians in four games to have a prayer to beat the Astros in the ALCS. Now? Now they’re coming off a five-game series that went the distance and are landing in Houston on the same day they will be asked to beat the soon-to-be-named AL Cy Young winner who has owned the Yankees in the postseason in five different seasons and with two different teams.

2. Like a fool, I returned to the Stadium on Saturday afternoon to observe the disparity between the “Top 2” teams in the AL with my own eyes. I should have stayed home rather than venturing to the Bronx yet again. At least I would have been able to change the channel when Aaron Boone removed Gerrit Cole with the bases loaded and no outs in the sixth in favor of the at-best fourth-best reliever on the team. Instead, I had to watch Christian Vazquez once again ruin the Yankees in a postseason game, just like he did in Game 4 of the 2018 ALDS.

Trailing 5-0, I knew the game was over. To that point, the Yankees had scored two earned runs in 23 innings in the series and would now need five runs in four innings just to tie the game and would need to somehow find a way to score a sixth run to win the game if they were able to prevent the Astros from scoring again. The Astros didn’t score again after plating their fourth and fifth runs on the Vazquez single, but it didn’t matter because the Yankees never scored. A second straight game of scoring zero earned runs in a best-of-7 is a good way to ensure you go home early.

3. I did go home early. After the Yankees went down listlessly in the seventh, while still sitting on one hit for the game, I walked out of the Stadium. A few of my inebriated friends asked “Really?” when I said I was leaving, and I answered, “Yes. I know how simple math works.” The odds were close to zero the Yankees would go from being one-hit through seven innings to staging the greatest late-game postseason comeback in the team’s history. I was present for their last great postseason comeback in Game 4 of the 2017 ALCS against the Astros, but this Yankees team isn’t that Yankees team.

That Yankees team was the team that turned what was supposed to be a rebuild into coming within one win of the World Series. Their young core was the envy of the league and was about to get even better by acquiring Giancarlo Stanton for nothing and promoting top prospect Gleyber Torres. Big contracts and owed money was going to be coming off the books left and right, giving the Yankees the rare opportunity to combine a young, inexpensive core with young, expensive big-name free agents also in their prime.

Instead, the Yankees cut payroll by nearly $50 million after that magical 2017 postseason run. A year later, they met with then-26-year-old Manny Machado as a well-we-tried ploy more than anything and chose to not even meet with the then-26-year-old Bryce Harper because they claimed their outfield of the future was set with Judge, who they needed to extend (and never did and now might lose him for nothing), Stanton (who they never let actually play the outfield), Aaron Hicks (who they then gave a seven-year extension to) and Clint Frazier (who they eventually released for nothing).

4. As I approached home, the Yankees did pick up their second and third hits of Game 3, finishing the game 3-for-29 with five walks and 11 more strikeouts to add to their absurd total of 41 strikeouts through three games. The Yankees became the first team in MLB postseason history to have a three-game span with 12 hits or fewer, 40-plus strikeouts and three losses. Congratulations to Aaron Boone on overseeing yet another Yankees milestone! Here are some other great moments in Yankees history Boone has overseen: most lopsided home postseason loss in franchise history, only blown multi-run lead in ninth inning in team postseason history (now 167-1) and only team in MLB postseason history to record six hits or less in 10 straight postseason games. After Saturday’s loss, the Yankees now have the lowest team batting average through eight postseason games in MLB history as well. Quite the resume for the Yankees manager!

5. Unfortunately, the Yankees simply advancing to the ALCS guaranteed Brian Cashman would receive a new contract, and in turn, guaranteed Boone would be retained as manager with two more guaranteed years left on his contract. The Yankees needed to either completely blow their 15 1/2-game division lead (which they nearly did) or lose to the vastly inferior Guardians in the ALDS (which they nearly did) for Cashman to possibly not get a new deal with the Yankees and for Boone to not be the manager in 2023, and even then, they were probably both returning next season no matter what.

6. With Game 4 guaranteed to take place, the Yankees will have played five postseason home games, and essentially six with the hours-long delayed call on the postponement of Game 5 of the ALDS. That’s likely enough for Hal Steinbrenner to keep things status quo since his No. 1 priority isn’t winning, it’s maximizing the team’s revenue, and the team once again reached the second-farthest round of the postseason. If the difference between finishing in last place in the league and winning the World Series was $1, Hal would rather finish in last place for that extra dollar.

7. While the Yankees are on the brink of elimination, I would like to think that as a Yankees fan I’m on the brink of seeing a long list of Yankees play their final game (or games if this somehow lasts more than four game) with the team. That includes Josh Donaldson and Gleyber Torres (two players the team unsuccessfully tried to trade at this year’s deadline), and it includes Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who should have never been a Yankee to begin with. When I watched Hicks walk off the field after the collision with Oswaldo Cabrera, it was likely the last time I saw him in a Yankees uniform. (I can only pray.) But I fully expect to see them all on the Yankees next season. They’re all under contract, so why wouldn’t they be back?

8. A year ago when Boone had his end-of-the-season press conference, he said the league had “closed the gap” on the Yankees as if it was 20 years ago and the franchise was coming off five World Series appearances in six seasons. It was a startling and delusional comment from a manager who continues to tell everyone after every postseason elimination how close his team is to winning it all. Except they’re not. They’re not close at all.

They’re further away from winning it all than they were when he took over. He took over a team that came within one win of the World Series and they have never been that close again. As a loser who has never won anything as a player or manager in the league, the young core he took over has blossomed into losers as well, constantly hearing their manager make excuses for the team’s shortcoming, praising mediocre and bad performances from his players and always talking about the next day and the next game has turned the organization into one that is accepting and comfortable with losing.

9. After the Game 3 loss, Judge (who is as much to blame for this postseason debacle as he is for all of the postseason debacles in his time with the Yankees) said, “We’ve got a lot of talented individuals in this room. We just haven’t been able to get everybody clicking on the same page this series, but we’ve still got a lot of ball left to play.”

It’s not just “this series,” and unless the Yankees are playing the Twins in the postseason, it’s every series. The Yankees have talented individuals every season who come up short in the postseason and then get passes from management and the front office who attribute postseason failure to “small sample sizes” and “randomness.” Oddly enough, I don’t remember Cashman or the Yankees claiming “luck” for postseason success when they won four championships in five seasons and appeared in the World Series in six of eight seasons. The “postseason is a crapshoot” excuses didn’t start getting thrown around until the Yankees started losing frequently and excessively in October, and all this group of Yankees (outside of Anthony Rizzo who is the only person in the clubhouse to have ever won anything, and unsurprisingly, has the been the Yankees’ best player this postseason) has known is losing, and so, the “small sample size” and “randomness” and “luck” and “crapshoot” references have been thrown around a lot in recent years.

10. There may only be one game left in the Yankees’ season. Barring the single greatest comeback in postseason history (which would top the Red Sox’ 2004 comeback since they faced Jon Lieber and Kevin Brown in Games 6 and 7, while the Yankees will face Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez), the Yankees’ season will end sometime in the next few days, and as early as Sunday. There will be no more next day or next game or tomorrow for Boone or his roster to reference. All there will be is another wasted season once again ended by the Astros.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees managed to score only two unearned runs in Game 2 of the ALCS, lost 3-2 and are now in an 0-2 hole against the Astros.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. Prior to Game 2, in jest, I tweeted the following:

Yankees win tonight.
Cole in Game 3.
Cortes in Game 4.
Yankees have 3-1 series lead.

Boom. That easy!

It couldn’t possibly have been more sarcastic. Obviously, nothing about this ALCS was ever going to be easy (as I have said all season long), and nothing about being down 1-0 in the series already and needing to win four of the next six games was going to be easy. The Yankees are now down 2-0 in the series and need to win four of the next five games to avoid being eliminated by the Astros for the fourth time in eight seasons.

2. Game 2 was a lot like Game 1, which means it was a lot like every game the Yankees have played in Houston in the postseason since the start of the 2017 ALCS. The Yankees lost 3-2, which was their fourth one-run loss to the in Houston in the ALCS in nine games. Add in the Game 6 loss in the 2019 ALCS and the Game 1 loss from Wednesday, and the Yankees have lost six games in Houston in the ALCS by two runs or less. The Game 2 loss dropped them to 1-8 in Houston in the ALCS.

For as much as Game 2 was like Game 1, it was even worse. Sure, the result was the same in that the Yankees lost, but the way they lost was more painful than only hitting a pair of solo home runs and striking out 17 times like they had the night before. In Game 2, the Yankees scored only two runs (which were both unearned as a result of two errors on the same play by Framber Valdez) and struck out 13 times. As a team, the Yankees are 9-for-65 with four walks, 30 strikeouts and a .138/.200/.262 slash line through two games. It’s making their .214/.289/.383 slash line from the six-game loss to the Astros in the 2019 ALCS look amazing. Every Yankees fan would sign up for a .214/.289/.383 slash line right now.

The Yankees have such an abysmal batting line because they have faced arguably the best pitcher in the world who is soon to be awarded his third Cy Young award, and the Astros’ No. 2 starter, who would be a No. 1 on nearly every other team in baseball after leading the league in innings pitched, complete games, quality starts and home runs per nine innings.

3. The Yankees were built as a boom-or-bust offense, and when there’s no boom (like there wasn’t in Game 2), and it’s a lot of bust, it looks awful. Thirty strikeouts in two games is awful. Nine straight postseason games with six or fewer hits is awful (and also the all-time record in Major League Baseball history).

The Yankees are able to reach the postseason as often as they do with this offensive strategy because they are able to beat up on the mediocre and bad teams (of which there are a lot) during the regular season, and beat up on those teams’ fourth and fifth starters and fringe-major-league middle relievers. Those pitchers aren’t part of the postseason, and when they are, like Aaron Civale was inexplicably as the starter in Game 5 for the Guardians, the Yankees beat up on him. But other than Civale, here are the pitchers the Yankees have faced in the postseason:

Cal Quantrill: 3.38 ERA in 186 1/3 innings
Trevor Stephan: 11.6 K/9
Enyel De Los Santos: 10.3 K/9
James Karinchak: 14.3 K/9
Shane Bieber: 2.88 ERA in in 200 innings
Emmanuel Clase: League-leading 42 saves and 0.729 WHIP in 72 2/3 innings
Trevor McKenzie: 2.96 ERA in 191 1/3 innings
Sam Hentges: 10.5 K/9
Eli Morgan: 0.885 WHIP in 66 2/3 innings
Justin Verlander: 1.75 ERA in 175 innings
Hector Neris: 10.9 K/9
Rafael Montero: 1.024 WHIP in 68 1/3 innings
Ryan Pressly: 12.1 K/9
Bryan Abreu: 13.1 K/9

There’s no fringe major leaguer on that list. There’s no mediocre arm on that list. It’s a list of some of the very best starters and relievers in the entire game.

Because this is the norm for postseason play, the Yankees’ boom-or-bust approach tends to be exposed more often than not. But any approach against pitchers like these is to be exposed more often than not. The difference between the Yankees’ lack of success against the Astros and the Astros’ success against the Yankees is the one thing the Yankees do better than every team during nearly every regular season: hit home runs.

Between the 2017, 2019 and 2022 ALCS, the Astros haven’t collectively hit better than the Yankees (outside of these last two games) …

2017
Yankees: .205/.274/.347
Astros: .187/.271/.294

2019
Yankees: .214/.289/.383
Astros: .179/.281/.318

2022
Yankees: .138/.200/.262
Astros: .254/.343/.508

… and yet, the Astros are 10-5 against the Yankees in these three series.

The difference has been timely hitting.

4. The Yankees outhit the Astros overall in the 2017 ALCS, but their slash line is propped up by the success they had in Games 3, 4 and 5 at Yankee Stadium. In that series, in Houston, the Yankees scored three totals runs in four games.

The Yankees outhit the Astros again in the 2019 ALCS, but their slash line was propped up by a 7-0 win in Game 1 (when Gleyber Torres was still good at baseball).

The Astros have out-timely hit the Yankees the majority of the time. Whether it was Alex Bregman’s three-run home run in Game 2 or the pair of solo home runs off Clarke Schmidt in Game 1. Whether it was Jose Altuve’s two-run, walk-off home run off Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 in 2019 or Yuli Gurriel’s three-run home run off Chad Green in the first inning in that same game, or the pair of three-run home runs by George Springer and Carlos Correa in Game 5 in 2019, or the pair of solo home runs by Jose Altuve and Josh Reddick in the first two innings in Game 3 in 2019, or the game-tying solo home run by Springer and the walk-off solo home run by Correa in Game 2 in 2019. The list goes on and on.

What’s the common theme on this list? The home run. The biggest, game-changing and game-winning moments in the postseason are home runs. It’s nearly impossible to string together three or four hits in an inning against the list of arms I provided, and the best odds of scoring are to get a mistake, run into one or get a little bit of luck and have one carry out.

The difference between these two teams in the ALCS isn’t limited to the Astros. In the five games the Yankees have won, it’s been the home run that got them back in a game, changed the game or won the game for them. Whether it’s Torres’ big Game 1 in 2019 or Aaron Hicks’ three-run bomb off Justin Verlander in Game 5 in 2019. When DJ LeMahieu nearly changed the 2019 series by tying the game in the ninth inning in Game 6, how did he do it? A single to right field? No. A double down the line? No. A two-run shot that is now the second-most forgotten about nearly-all-time-home run in Yankees history after Alfonso Soriano’s go-ahead solo home run off Curt Schilling in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series.

5. The difference in Game 2 was that Bregman hit a ball off Luis Severino that had an expected batting average of .040 and carried out to left field for a three-run home run, and Aaron Judge hit a ball with an expected batting average of .910 that instead of giving the Yankees a one-run lead in the eighth inning, was caught at the wall for an out.

To make matters worse if you’re a Yankees fan, look at this stat:

Judge’s flyout was hit at 106.3 mph and at a 28-degree launch angle, but it only traveled 345 feet. Similarly-hit batted balls (106-107 mph exit velocity with a 27-29-degree launch angle) traveled an average of 414 feet during the regular season.

Did the MinuteMaid Park roof being open for the second time in 2022 help Bregman’s ball for a three-run home run and prevent Judge’s ball from going over the wall and giving the Yankees the lead and changing the series? Yes.

The Yankees ran into the ultimate bad luck between Bregman and Judge in Game 2, in a game in which the margin of error was extremely slim. Instead of the series being tied at 1, the Yankee are in an 0-2 hole, and the odds of them advancing to the World Series for the first time in 13 years are looking grim.

The Yankees may have not needed the opened roof to be on their side if they had done anything else at the plate all night. They couldn’t touch Valdez’s elite curveball, and seemed to take every single one of his over-the-plate, and at times middle-middle fastballs. How many times were the Yankees in an 0-1 count after taking a mid-90s fastball over the plate only to then start chasing the curveball in at the feet of the right-handed batters and low-and-away to Anthony Rizzo? It was infuriating to watch them have the same approach and make the same mistakes over and over each time through the lineup with no adjustment.

But that’s also what makes Valdez great. He’s not the No. 2 starter on the Astros because he throws get-me-over, loopy curveballs. He’s second to only Verlander on the Astros because he throws strikes, works ahead and can locate his curveball wherever he wants it. The Yankees barely made him work and the bottom four hitters of the order must have made him laugh.

6. As I have said each and every season, I’m never worried about the Yankees’ pitching in the postseason. It’s their hitting I’m always worried about. In all seven of their postseason games this year, they have gotten good to great starts from their starters, with no eggs laid and no clunkers. The pitching has been there, and it was again in Game 2 with Severino shutting down the Astros outside of Bregman’s wind-aided home run. Look at where the pitch to Bregman was.

Painted on the black. In on the hands. It was a great pitch that Bregman was able to lift and the Houston atmosphere did the rest.

7. Yes, luck was on the Astros’ side and not on the Yankees’ side in Game 2. A lot of postseason games are decided by luck, and sometimes they are decided by an inordinate amount of luck. Think about Jeffrey Maier leaning over the wall to pull in Derek Jeter’s “home run” in the 1996 ALCS, or Tino Martinez getting a second chance on a missed strike call before hitting a grand slam in the 1998 World Series, or the umpires missing Joe Mauer hitting the chalk of the left-field foul line with the bases-loaded in Game 2 of the 2009 ALDS at Yankee Stadium. All of those moments were game-changing and series-changing breaks that went the Yankees’ way.

But even if Bregman’s “lucky” home run was the difference in Game 2, no one wants to hear that from the Yankees. Not from the manager and certainly not from the players. For Aaron Boone to blame the loss on the roof being opened, saying, “The roof (being open) kinda killed us,” is embarrassing, and yet, it’s not even in the Top 20 embarrassing excuses he has made in five years as Yankees manager.

8. You know who makes excuses? Losers. In Jeter’s documentary over the summer, while reflecting on the 2001 and 2003 World Series and 2004 ALCS and commenting that he thought the Yankees “should have won” those years, he admitted he sounded like a loser by saying “should have won.” As Sean Connery’s character John Mason famously said, “Losers whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”

This Yankees core is essentially a group of losers because all they have ever done together is lose. And led by a manager who has never won anything as a player or manager, he has instilled a culture that is accepting of losing and comfortable with losing. “Annie” Boone is always talking about “tomorrow” the way the Broadway character sang about it and his players have followed his act. The one time Boone has been unaccepting of losing as Yankees manager was this summer when the team nearly blew its 15 1/2-game division lead, and in showing his frustration with losing, he admitted to the media the Yankees may actually blow their astronomical division lead. (Yes, the Yankees moved on from a manager who had won three championships as a player with the team and a fourth as a manger for this loser.) Every Yankee who spoke with the media after the Game 2 loss sounded exactly like their manager because as a team they don’t know what winning looks like or sounds like. The only current Yankee to have ever won anything is Anthony Rizzo, and shockingly, he is the only Yankee to consistently produce this postseason.

9. The Yankees sound like losers blaming the roof for yet another postseason loss to the Astros, even if it helped the Astros win. The roof didn’t cause the Yankees to strike out 13 times. It didn’t cause Josh Donaldson to swing at breaking balls like he had never seen one before. It didn’t cause Boone to use his sixth different lineup, third different leadoff hitter and third different shortstop in seven games. It didn’t cause Boone to play Kyle Higashioka and then bat him seventh over a Top 50 MLB prospect and a player who had been the Yankees’ No. 5-6 hitter for the last month-plus.

The roof didn’t cause Brian Cashman to take on the nearly $50 million owed to Donaldson in order to acquire Isiah Kiner-Falefa, who neither the Twins nor Rangers wanted. It didn’t cause Boone to play Kiner-Falefa all season, and including in the last month of the season when Oswald Peraza was on the roster and outplaying Kiner-Falefa. It didn’t cause Boone to play Kiner-Falefa in the ALDS and leave Peraza off the ALDS roster, only to then have to bench Kiner-Falefa with the Yankees on the brink of elimination as he single-handedly ruined Game 3 against the Guardians. It didn’t cause Boone’s love for Kiner-Falefa and hate for Peraza to extend the ALDS to five games, forcing the Yankees to go from the ALDS and ALCS in back-to-back days with a tired team, fatigued bullpen and out-of-order rotation.

The roof helped the Astros hit a home run and prevented the Yankees from hitting one. It didn’t cause the seismic gap between the two organizations that has the Astros two wins away from going to their second straight World Series and third in six years and has the Yankees two losses away from being eliminated before the World Series for the 12th straight year and 18th time in 19 years. It didn’t cause one organization to be able to let Gerrit Cole, Springer and Correa walk and fill their voids from within their own homegrown talent pool, while the other organization trades for players like Donaldson and Kiner-Falefa to fill their lineup voids. It didn’t cause one organization to re-sign Verlander at two years and $50 million, while the other organization was only willing to give him one year and $25 million, five years after one organization was willing to take on his salary from the Tigers, while the other organization wasn’t.

10. The opened roof may have changed the result of Game 2, but it’s not the reason the Astros won 106 games and the 1-seed in the playoffs, as the Yankees stumbled for the final three months of the season and completed the worst trade deadline outcome of all time. It’s not the reason the Yankees have led the Astros for a total of six batters in nine games this season.

The Yankees needed to play their best baseball of the season and have luck on their side to beat the Astros in this series. They haven’t had the latter, but it’s the former that has them one loss away from being on the brink of elimination for the second time in less than a week.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

After failing to hit in Houston against the Astros in the ALCS in 2017 and 2019, the Yankees continued that trend in the 2022 ALCS, scoring just two runs and having 16 straight batters retired between the third and eighth innings in Game 1.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. As I stood in unison with the rest of Yankee Stadium during the ninth inning of Game 5 against the Guardians on Tuesday, I wasn’t foolish enough to join in the chant reverberating throughout the Bronx.

“WE WANT HOU-STON! WE WANT HOU-STON! WE WANT HOU-STON!“

No one should “want” Houston. I get that at that moment the Yankees and Yankees fans didn’t have a choice. The Astros had already advanced to the ALCS three days earlier after sweeping the Mariners and there was no other option. Beat the Guardians and face the Astros, or lose to the Guardians and go home. I joked that I would rather lose to the Guardians than suffer a third ALCS loss to the Astros in six years and fourth elimination by the Astros in eight years. I was only half-joking.

Normally, it would be humiliating to lose in the same round of the postseason to the same team for a third straight time and to be eliminated by the same team in the postseason for the fourth time in eight years, especially this team. However, it really won’t be humiliating if the Yankees are eliminated by the Astros in the ALCS because the roster, talent and management gap between the two is that wide. And after Wednesday’s 4-2 loss in Game 1, the Yankees are 25 percent of the way and three losses away from being eliminated by the Astros once again.

2. I went into Game 1 thinking of it as pretty much a throwaway game. The Yankees were being forced to start Jameson Taillon, a pitcher they went out of their way to prevent from starting a postseason game, including trading away good, young starting pitching talent to acquire Frankie Montas. (That turned out well.) And on the other end, they would be facing a well-rested Justin Verlander coming off seven days rest. The soon-to-be AL Cy Young winner at age 39 has spent his career shutting down the Yankees in the playoffs dating back to the 2006 ALDS, and including the 2011 ALDS, 2012 ALCS, 2017 ALCS, and 2019 ALCS. Verlander could have been a Yankee these last six years if Hal Steinbrenner had been willing to take on his salary at the 2017 waiver deadline. The Astros were willing to take on his salary from Detroit and he has shoved it back in the Yankees’ face in now three different postseasons. (The Yankees could have had him for this season as well, but they only offered him $25 million for one year, and the Astros offered him $25 million per year for two years, so he went back to Houston. Two years and $50 million is nearly what the Yankees are paying Josh Donaldson for this year and next.)

Verlander wasn’t his usual dominant self against the Yankees in Game 1. Yes, he finished the game with one run allowed over six innings, striking out 11 and retiring the last 11 he faced, but the Yankees had runners on against him early (something they never seem to have against him) and couldn’t capitalize (something they never seem to do against him).

It started in the first at-bat of the game when Gleyber Torres (a continual awful choice for the leadoff spot given his approach) was ahead 3-1, and rather than take a pitch and possibly draw a walk, took the kind of swing you would expect to see on an 0-2 pitch and weakly grounded out to third. The Yankees eventually had two runners on in the first before Donaldson struck out in one of the least competitive at-bats you will ever see. (That is, until you saw his next two at-bats.)

3. In the second, Harrison Bader hit his fourth home run in six playoff games to give the Yankees their first lead over the Astros in eight games this season. That lead didn’t last long. In the bottom of the inning, after getting two quick outs, Taillon allowed a single to No. 8 hitter Chas McCormick and then a double off the wall on a 1-2 pitch to career-.634 OPS Martin Maldonado. To that point, Taillon had allowed a lot of hard contact, and the only reason the Astros hadn’t put the game out of reach was because of Aaron Judge’s spectacular diving catch on an Alex Bregman line drive that saved two runs from scoring in the first. Taillon ended up giving the Yankees 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball, which was drastically better than when he allowed six runs on 10 hits in his lone regular-season start against the Astros.

4. Aaron Boone decided to go batter-to-batter with Taillon in the fifth inning, despite Taillon facing the top of the order for a third time. After he retired Jose Altuve (who remains hitless in the postseason, and yet the Astros are undefeated in the postseason), he allowed Jeremy Pena to double off him for the second time and Boone went to Clarke Schmidt to face the 3-4-5 hitters. The only thing Boone hates more than giving his relievers a clean inning to work with is playing Oswald Peraza, so he waited until a runner was in scoring position to go to his bullpen. It was a spot that had “Lou Trivino” written all over it and Boone went with Schmidt instead. After intentionally walking Yordan Alvarez, Schmidt walked Bregman to load the bases. I was about ready to go to bed and catch up on the sleep I have been deprived of because of the week-long ALDS until Schmidt got Kyle Tucker to ground into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning. Between Taillon getting 13 outs and allowing only a run and Schmidt pitching out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam against the heart of the order, I began to think Maybe they can steal this game. It was an unintelligent thought to have.

That’s because there were still four innings to play, and the Yankees were already in their bullpen. There would be a lot of decisions by Boone for the remainder of the game, and the more decisions needed to be made by Boone, the worse off the Yankees would be. It didn’t take long for that theory to prove out as Boone stayed with Schmidt for the sixth and Yuli Gurriel crushed a solo home run off him to lead off the inning and give the Astros a 2-1 lead.

The fifth-inning had “Lou Trivino” written all over it, but the sixth inning screamed “LOU TRIVINO!” Instead, Boone stayed with Schmidt and he gave up the home run. Even after the home run, Boone stayed with Schmidt, and two batters later, McCormick (again, the No. 8 hitter) went deep to extend the Astros’ lead to 3-1. Then, Boone decided to go to Trivino. Why pitch him in a tie game when you can bring him with the Yankees trailing by two runs? Of course he retired the next two batters to end the inning, including striking out Altuve.

5. From then on, the rest of the game was a mere formality. The Astros added an insurance run in the seventh when Pena hit a solo home run off Montas (ironic he was pitching in relief in a game started by Taillon when he was acquired to pitch in the postseason over Taillon). The Yankees did bring the go-ahead run to the plate in the ninth in Matt Carpenter, but the Yankees’ version of Barry Bonds from the regular season struck out for the fourth time in the game. Carpenter is now 0-for-6 with six strikeouts in the postseasons, though his plate appearances have come again Trevor Stephan, James Karinchak, Justin Verlander and Ryan Pressly. Those are the only six plate appearances Carpenter has had since August 8, and it’s hard enough to hit those names, let alone after a two-and-a-half-month layoff. That doesn’t change the fact that I would continue to use Carpenter (though with the left-handed Framber Valdez starting in Game 2, you can bet Carpenter won’t be starting.)

6. Carpenter had a bad night, though so did all of the Yankees except for Anthony Rizzo, Giancarlo Stanton and Bader. From the second out of the third until Rizzo’s home run with two outs in the eighth, the Yankees didn’t get a single baserunner. What Boone, Schmidt and Montas did was bad, but it truly didn’t matter with the offense performing their traditional postseason disappearing act in Houston. That game might as well have been a game from the 2017 ALCS or 2019 ALCS. The Yankees scored two runs on two solo home runs, didn’t capitalize on the few chances they had with runners on base, struck out 17 times and at one point went 16 straight batters without getting a baserunner. After having the worst batting average (.182) of a team to win a division series in league history, the Yankees followed it up with the same kind of offensive performance they have put together all season against the Astros.

7. The Yankees have now played eight games against the Astros in 2022, and this is what the Yankees’ offense has done in those games:

June 23: No-hit for seven innings, 10 strikeouts
June 24: One run
June 25: No-hit, 15 strikeouts
June 26: No-hit for 6 1/3 innings
June 30: One run, 11 strikeouts
July 21: Two runs
July 21: Five runs off a starter who isn’t in the Astros’ playoff rotation and a reliever who is no longer in the majors, 10 strikeouts
October 19: 16 batters retired in a row from third inning until eighth inning, 17 strikeouts

8. It’s going to be hard for the Yankees to survive another series (especially one against the Astros) with Aaron Judge contributing little to nothing at the plate, and in Game 1, he contributed nothing at the plate. The Yankees tried to get past the Astros in 2019 with only Torres and DJ LeMahieu hitting and it inevitably didn’t work out. They won’t get past them this year either if Rizzo, Stanton and Bader are going to be the only bats to provide offense.

9. Donaldson can’t be counted on to provide offense. He just produced the worst season of his career despite being healthy for all of it. He can’t hit elite pitching, can’t touch high-90s velocity and has no clue how to put a breaking ball in play. In Game 1, he struck out with two runners on in his first plate appearance, struck out on three pitches with runners on second and third and one out in his second plate appearance and struck out on three pitches in his third plate appearance. He did draw a walk in his fourth plate appearance, which is the extent of his offense through six postseason games. Continuing to bat Donaldson fifth because of his name and as if he’s still the same player he was three to seven years ago is infuriating. He’s undeserving of batting fifth in the lineup (as much as Torres is undeserving of leading off), and if he’s not going to be benched outright (which he should be) then he needs to be moved down.

10. To be honest, this is the least upset I have ever been after a Yankees postseason loss. I’m not upset because the Yankees aren’t as good as the Astros, and I’ve known that since late June. Even with a fully healthy Carpenter, LeMahieu, Andrew Benintendi, Michael King, Ron Marinaccio and Scott Effross, it was going to be extremely difficult to beat the Astros. Without them and without home-field advantage and with the Yankees’ bullpen fatigued from the ALDS and their rotation out of order because they went the distance in the ALDS, it’s going to be nearly impossible to win this series. Just think, in Game 1, the Yankees held Altuve, Alvarez, Bregman and Tucker to 0-for-12 with three walks and they still lost. If Pena (three extra-base hits), who had a .289 on-base percentage this season, McCormick (two hits, including a home run and a walk), who is their 8-hitter, and Maldonado (game-tying double), who is among the worst “everyday” hitters in the majors can win a game in the series, the Yankees may really have no chance.

As I originally thought and wrote after the ALDS Game 5 win, I don’t expect the Yankees with their injuries, first-round bullpen usage and schedule to beat the Astros. After what I saw in Game 1, it’s going to be even harder for the Yankees to upset the Astros than I envisioned. I thought it would take a miracle for the Yankees to get back to the World Series for the first time in 13 seasons and the second time in 19 years, but what’s more improbable than a miracle? Because that’s what it’s going to take.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees faced elimination in the do-or-die Game 5 of the ALDS and staved it off for a second straight game. The Yankees beat the Guardians 5-1 and are headed to the ALCS.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. After Aaron Boone mismanaged the Yankees to the brink of elimination in Game 3, I wrote:

I do think the Yankees will win Game 4 and force a Game 5, but I don’t know how they will win Game 5 without an available starter and with their bullpen already fatigued after just three games.

The Yankees did win Game 4 and the weather took care of my worrying about an available starter for Game 5. Sure, it absolutely sucked to go to the Stadium on Monday night, only to sit there until 9:20 p.m. and then go home having not seen a baseball game, but in the end it worked out.

2. The rainout took away the Guardians’ advantage of having a completely rested elite bullpen with the Yankees’ bullpen in shambles, and more importantly, it allowed the Yankees to replace Jameson Taillon with Nestor Cortes on three days rest. Taillon’s inability to put hitters away Phil Hughes-style would have likely ended badly for the Yankees with the Guardians’ contact ability. (That is, unless Aaron Civale was also going to give up a three-run home run in the first inning if the game had been played on Monday night. I still can’t believe Terry Francona thought that decision gave his team the best chance to win Game 5. I’m glad he did.)

3. Cortes was awesome. He only needed 61 pitches to get through five innings, and it would have been even less if not for the Yankees’ clusterfuck in left field that resulted in yet another bloop single for the Guardians and led to the only run they would score in the game. I would have sent Cortes back out for the sixth inning to face the Guardians’ 2-3-4 hitters for a third time, though it worked out with Jonathan Loaisiga, Clay Holmes and Wandy Peralta combing to pitch four scoreless innings. Those three were outstanding in the series, despite insane batted ball luck for the Guardians with their never-ending parade of bloop and infield singles. Boone pushed the right buttons in Game 5 (even if they were some of the easiest buttons ever to push), and with an ALCS appearance, it’s now a guarantee he will be back for 2023, and Brian Cashman as well.

4. The key to winning Game 5 was always to get an early lead. I was nervous when Steven Kwan led the game off with a single, thinking he would steal second, move to third on an out and score on another out. If the Guardians jumped out to an early lead, Francona may have skipped Civale all together and gone straight to the elite relievers. Those elite relievers pitched seven innings and allowed one run in those seven innings. If the Guardians had scored in the top of the first, like I feared they would, the entire game would have been different.

They didn’t, but the Yankees did. Gleyber Torres drew a leadoff walk and after Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch with one out, Giancarlo Stanton crushed a 2-0 pitch, sending a line-drive missile over the right-field wall for an early 3-0 lead.

5. Nearly the entire Yankees lineup finished the five-game series with ugly overall numbers. The two outliers were Rizzo and Harrison Bader. However, everyone had their moment, even if their numbers suggest otherwise.

Torres finished the series with a .396 OPS, but had the leadoff single in Game 4 and the leadoff walk in Game 5. Judge had four hits in the series, but two of them were home runs. Stanton hit .125, but provided two first-inning home runs. Donaldson only had five hits (all singles), but did draw four walks and picked up a base hit before Bader’s big home run in Game 4. Oswaldo Cabrera hit .105 with a .421 OPS, but hit a double and two-run home run in Game 3, and Jose Trevino had the go-ahead sacrifice fly in Game 1.

The Yankees can’t have that kind of collection of ugly numbers across the board in the ALCS. They did in 2019 (aside from Torres and DJ LeMahieu) and it eliminated them.

6. On paper, there is no reason to think the Yankees can win the ALCS. The Astros have a better lineup, a better rotation, a better bullpen and a better manager. On top of all that, the Astros haven’t played since Saturday, are well rested and have their rotation set up exactly how they want. The Yankees have just played four games in the last five days, had the pressure or elimination in the last two of those games, only have a 24-hour layoff between the last pitch of Game 5 of the ALDS and Game 1 of the ALCS and are being forced to use Jameson Taillon in the series opener against Justin Verlander.

Now some of that is the Yankees’ own doing. They could have swept the Guardians (like the Astros did the Mariners), and have had the same amount of time off as the Astros if they hadn’t blown two-run leads in Games 2 and 3. They could have their rotation set up with Cole against Verlander, Cortes in Game 2 and Luis Severino in Game 3. Their bullpen could be well rested, having not needed to pitch six additional on-the-brink-of-elimination innings.

There isn’t one facet of the game or schedule that the Yankees have an advantage with. They are an underdog to the Astros in the ALCS for the third time in six seasons.

7. There is this common idea the Yankees “just need to win one in Houston” to have a chance in the series. I don’t think that’s true. In 2019, they did just that, winning Game 1 easily before blowing Game 2, and they wound up losing in six. In 2017, they lost the first two games in Houston, won all three at home, and lost in seven, after scoring just three runs total in the four road games. There is no right path to winning the ALCS, but the Yankees are going to need to finally solve the Astros’ pitching if they plan on reaching the World Series for the second time in 19 years. And to do so, they are going to need to sacrifice defense for offense.

It was one thing to get by the Guardians with the lineups the Yankees ran out there in the five games. That won’t work against the Astros. The Astros are going to play with one automatic out in their lineup in Martin Maldonado and the Yankees need to match that. No more than one automatic out in their lineup. (Jose Trevino, cough, cough.) This means either Giancarlo Stanton or Matt Carpenter needs to play left field with the other serving as the designated hitter.

There’s no need to worry about defense or balls in the gap in Houston’s left field. Either a batted ball will fall in front of the left fielder or it will be a home run. Anything else will be a catchable fly ball or a ball off the wall, which nothing can be done about. It’s why Yordan Alvarez plays left field for the Astros. Carpenter and Stanton can handle that. They have to handle it.

8. Things would be much different if the Yankees had Carpenter at full strength and DJ LeMahieu, Andrew Benintendi and Michael King healthy, and if Frankie Montas were healthy and pitching like the guy the Yankees thought they traded for. The Yankees with those players? That team I would feel confident in beating the Astros in the ALCS. This roster? It’s going to be difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. The Yankees are going to need their stars to play like such, and they are likely going to need some unlikely sources to provide magical moments. Something like Taillon pitching seven shutout innings in Game 1 against Verlander, or Bader continuing to hit like Judge and Stanton.

9. I don’t expect the Yankees with their injuries, first-round bullpen usage and schedule to beat the Astros. The Astros were the better team in the regular season (especially against the Yankees having never trailed them in their seven head-to-head games) and they are set up to be the better team in the postseason. The Yankees needed to win the 1-seed in the American League to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to sweep the Guardians to have a chance to beat the Astros in a potential ALCS matchup. They failed to do that. Then they needed to beat the Guardians in four games to have a prayer to beat the Astros in the ALCS. Now? Now they’re coming off a five-game series that went the distance and are landing in Houston on the same day they will be asked to beat the soon-to-be-named AL Cy Young winner who has owned the Yankees in the postseason in five different seasons and with two different teams.

10. The Yankees aren’t expected to win this series, and that’s exactly why I think they can. These Yankees have always been most successful when success isn’t expected. The 2017 Yankees weren’t supposed to be a playoff team, and they came within one win of the World Series. After coming within one win of the World Series and adding Giancarlo Stanton, the 2018 Yankees were expected to get back to the World Series and instead were embarrassed in the ALDS. The 2019 Yankees were expected to build off the previous two seasons and reach the World Series and they instead lost three of the last four games of the ALCS. The 2020 Yankees had the league’s top payroll and were eliminated in the ALDS by the team with the league’s lowest payroll. The 2021 Yankees were the odds-on favorite to win the American League, and they instead had to play in the wild-card game, which they lost. Ever since this Yankees core started playing with expectations (and a new manager) back in 2018, they have failed miserably, never getting as close to the World Series as the 2017 expectation-less team did.

This version of these Yankees were supposed to finish behind the Blue Jays in the division. They finished seven games ahead of the Blue Jays, winning the division. When they lost Game 3 of the ALDS, they were supposed to be upset by the Guardians. Now they’re going to play a team and organization that owned them in the regular season and has owned them in the postseason. These Yankees and this core finally reaching the World Series and finally getting past the Astros to do so would be a perfect bookend to way this core started back in 2017.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!

The Yankees played their first elimination game of the postseason in Game 4 of the ALDS and survived with a 4-2 win in Cleveland to force a Game 5 in New York.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. I was confident the Yankees would win Game 4 of the ALDS, and remain confident they can still win the series despite their manager putting them on the brink of elimination after Game 3. The way I went into Game 1 thinking Gerrit Cole would shut down the Guardians, was how I went into Game 4, and Cole did just that, going seven innings and allowing just two earned runs. One of those two runs came on a Jose Ramirez RBI single that was blooped into left field with an expected batting average of .090. In comparison, Gleyber Torres’ inning-ending double play in the fifth had an expected batting average of .650 and resulted in two outs. Just bad luck for the Yankees. The kind of back luck they experienced as the Guardians blooped and ground ball singled their way to a comeback in the ninth inning in Game 3. Sometimes baseball sucks, and with the batted ball luck the Guardians had in Games 2 and 3, baseball sucked a lot the last two days.

But baseball didn’t suck on Sunday night. Not with Cole saving the Yankees’ season and forcing a Game 5 on Monday night at the Stadium. Sure, if the Yankees win and advance to the ALCS their rotation and bullpen will both be a mess, while the Astros will have had three full days off and will have their rotation set up how they want with their bullpen completely rested. But I will worry about the Astros if I get the opportunity to worry about the Astros. For now, it’s time worry about Game 5. And there’s a lot to worry about for Game 5.

2. The goal in the postseason is to minimize the amount of decisions Boone has to make, and on Sunday he only had to make two: who to pitch in the eighth and who to pitch in the ninth. They both worked out because they were rather simple decisions to make. Boone didn’t have to make a multitude of bullpen decisions or use pinch runners or pinch hitters. It was an easy night for the manager, just like Game 1 was, and the Yankees won both games. The less decisions Boone has to make, the more successful the Yankees are. It’s crazy how that works out.

3. In Game 5, Aaron Boone will unfortunately need to make a lot of decisions. Unless Jameson Taillon goes out and pitches a Cole-like gem, Boone is going to have to make at least five pitching changes, and whatever pinch hitting (it would be nice if Matt Carpenter could have an impact on this series) or pinch running (Boone is already itching to run Tim Locastro for Giancarlo Stanton) decisions he makes. This is where the Yankees are at an enormous disadvantage. Terry Francona is a Hall of Fame manager who has a storied history of making a litany of perfect decisions in elimination games. Boone has been a disaster in elimination games, and it’s why the Yankees have eventually been eliminated in all four postseasons he has been Yankees manager for.

4. Boone did say Nestor Cortes is available out of the bullpen in Game 5, and if that’s true, then why not start Cortes? The Yankees need to take an early lead given the Guardians elite relievers have only appeared in one game in the series and Francona will be willing to get multiple innings from all of them. The Yankees can’t afford to give up a run in the first inning when Steven Kwan, Amed Rosario and Jose Ramirez will all bat. Let Cortes face them, and see how long he can go, and then go elsewhere for outs. I think starting Taillon leaves the Yankees vulnerable in the top of the first, and if the Guardians plate a run or more in that inning, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Francona scrap having Aaron Civale take the mound as his “starter” and go right to his elite relievers to blow away the Yankees like they did in Game 2.

5. After 165 games of Yankees baseball in 2022, Boone finally decided to bench Isiah Kiner-Falefa. He had the opportunity to do so at any point during the regular season when Kiner-Falefa posted a .642 OPS and played a sloppy shortstop, but he continued to stay with him, letting the organization’s No. 3 prospect Oswald Peraza waste away on the bench in the final weeks of the regular season despite hitting .306/.404/.429 and playing exceptional defense. It was fitting to hear Ron Darling say during Game 4 that “If you’re on this Guardians team, age doesn’t matter, ability does,” as the Yankees operate under the exact opposite motto. Boone famously referred to Kiner-Falefa as “one of the best shortstops in the game” despite every statistic and the human eye suggesting otherwise. Boone continued to defend Kiner-Falefa’s play to the media and went as far as leaving Peraza off the ALDS roster to avoid a potential shortstop controversy.

6. But he got a shortstop controversy anyway, and he wasn’t able to rectify it by playing Peraza because he left Peraza off the ALDS roster. Kiner-Falefa misplayed the first ball hit to him in the very first inning of the series and went to on to misplay a handful of balls prior to his benching, including two inexplicable “errors” (that were both inexplicably called hits) in Game 3 that single-handedly led to the Yankees allowing two runs, which helped them lose the game. If Peraza or Oswaldo Cabrera or Marwin Gonzalez played shortstop in Game 3, I’m writing about the Yankees’ series-clinching win in Game 4 and preparing for the Astros on the Wednesday. Instead, I’m wasting more words on Kiner-Falefa, the worst everyday player on a championship-caliber team in Yankees history.

7. But Kiner-Falefa is no longer an everyday player. I believe Game 3 was the last time we will see him as the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. Cabrera played a perfect short in Game 4, made plays on balls Kiner-Falefa would have undoubtedly screwed up, and the Yankees won. Even if the moronic Boone said Cabrera will only “probably” be at shortstop in Game 5, everyone knows he will be. There’s no going back to Kiner-Falefa now (barring injury). It took the Yankees’ season being officially on the line for Boone to finally adjust his lineup by removing Kiner-Falefa from it. Hopefully, it leads to Peraza being on the ALCS roster, if the Yankees get there.

8. If they get there, Harrison Bader will be a big reason why. The Gold Glove center fielder came to the Yankees advertised as all glove bat and no bat, but he now has three home runs in the series after crushing a two-run shot in Game 4. He represents the bottom of the order spark plug the Yankees haven’t had in their lineup in nearly a decade. The type of player the opposition has haunted the Yankees with over the last decade.

9. Boone was extremely concerned about the capsule strain in Clay Holmes’ shoulder on Saturday night, but less than 24 hours later, his concern for Holmes seemed to go out the window as he was willing to go to him to face the top of the Guardians order in the eighth. If Boone stays true to his word that Holmes can’t pitch on back-to-back days, (which is nonsensical) that would mean Holmes is unavailable for Game 5. That is unless Boone stays true to his other word that Holmes is available to pitch back-to-back days if it’s an emergency situation. (Yes, Boone has contradicted himself with how he will handle Holmes.) The ninth inning of Game 3 of a best-of-5 series wasn’t an “emergency situation.” I wonder if Game 5 of a best-of-5 series will qualify as an “emergency situation” for Boone.

10. Game 5 is an “emergency situation” for everyone, just like Game 4 was. One team will spend their Monday night getting doused in champagne before flying to Houston to face the best team in baseball for a chance to go to the World Series. The other team will spend their Monday night answering questions about what went wrong and how they can make sure they aren’t answering the same questions a year from now.

Yankees fans have spent too many of the last 20 years watching their team answer those questions, only to have to endure the same result the following year.

A year ago, after losing the one-game playoff in embarrassing fashion, Boone and Brian Cashman spent their end-of-the-season press conferences in mid-October explaining the changes that would be made to avoid another early exit this season. The Yankees avoided that early exit on Sunday night in Game 4. They will have to do it again on Monday night in Game 5.

Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast.

My book The Next Yankees Era: My Transition from the Core Four to the Baby Bombers is now available as an ebook!