One run. That’s all the Yankees were able to score in a winner-take-all Game 5. One run.
I didn’t expect the Yankees to win Game 4. I expected them to lose. I expected them to lose so much that I spent the last few innings of Game 3 and the hours from then until the start of Game 4 reflecting on the end of the season and trying to figure out what I would do during the offseason, not knowing how long it might be.
The Yankees won Game 4 in improbable fashion when the weakest starting pitching option in the team’s eyes allowed only one earned run over four innings and the Yankees’ three best relievers combined to throw five shutout innings. Game 4 was the hard part. Game 4 was the obstacle. Game 5 would be much easier with the Yankees’ No. 1 starter going on three days rest against the Rays’ No. 2 starter on two days rest. The Yankees were set up to beat the Rays in two consecutive games for the first time in 2020 and avenge their embarrassing performance against them in the regular seaso. The Yankees were set up to win the series.
***
One run. That’s all the Yankees were able to score in a winner-take-all Game 5. One run. A solo home run off the bat of Aaron Judge who hit three solo home runs in the postseason and might as well have not even stepped into the box in all of his other plate appearances. The Yankees produced only three hits in their nine-inning flop to the Rays, despite Gerrit Cole’s outstanding performance (5.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 9K, 1 HR). A pair of singles from Gleyber Torres and Aaron Hicks was the rest of the Yankees’ offense, as the team went 3-for-29 with four walks and 11 strikeouts. It was the exact offensive performance Yankees fans have grown accustomed since the team’s last championship when it’s all on the line: a disappearing act.
Like the Astros in last year’s ALCS, who somehow managed to hit worse than the Yankees in the series and still win, the Rays didn’t exactly knock the cover off the ball. The Rays also recorded only three hits in Game 5, the difference being that two of theirs cleared the wall. The Rays tied the game on an Austin Meadows home run off Cole and would go on to win it after a Mike Brosseau home run allowed by Aroldis Chapman, the second season in a row aa long ball off Chapman ended the Yankees’ season.
***
This one hurts. They all hurt, but this one especially because it was the Rays, because the Yankees were set up perfectly to win Game 5, because it’s another wasted season of this core’s window and because it begins an offseason without a real end date. Yes, the 2021 schedule is scheduled, but there’s no way of knowing if it will take place as currently constructed or when it will take place.
The long, cold offseason is here. For the 11th straight time it has come way too early.
I didn’t expect the Yankees to win Game 4. If they were to win, I would expect them to win Game 5 because of Gerrit Cole.
I didn’t expect the Yankees to win Game 4. But if they were to win Game 4, I would expect them to win Game 5 with Gerrit Cole on the mound. Well, they won Game 4, and now I expect them to win Game 5 and advance to the ALCS.
I couldn’t envision how the Yankees could possibly win Game 4. I expected them to lose. I thought they would need a miracle to save their season, and a miracle is what they got.
I couldn’t envision how the Yankees could possibly win Game 4. They were opting to start Jordan Montgomery, the starting pitcher they view to be the weakest of their five in an elimination game, five weeks after he couldn’t make it out of the first inning against the same Rays at Yankee Stadium. Their right-handed heavy lineup was going to see the Rays’ bullpen for nine innings, a group they have failed to hit against in 13 games in 2020. And the Yankees were going to have to piece together at least 15 outs from a bullpen that has two truly trustworthy relievers and a third who has fallen off of late.
I expected the Yankees to lose. Like I wrote after Game 3, they would need a miracle to save their season and get to a Gerrit Cole start in Game 5 on Friday. And a miracle is what they got.
I hope the offense we saw in the first three postseason games returns and Montgomery is good enough to give the Yankees length and Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman can close it out. That’s asking for a lot. It’s asking for a miracle. But that’s what the Yankees will need to win this series and avoid wasting another season in their championship window: a miracle.
It was asking for a lot, but it all got answered.
Montgomery pitched four innings of one-run ball in Game 4, working in and out of trouble right from the first batter of the game when Yandy Diaz opened the night with a leadoff single. He put six runners on his outing, but limited the damage the way he has when he has been at his best in his young career.
The offense returned to score five runs in the game and the all-important first run of the game. Leading 2-1 in the sixth, the Yankees did what they did in the ninth inning of Game 1 of the series and something they failed to do all regular season: tack on runs. Gleyber Torres hit a two-run home run to increase the Yankees’ lead to 4-1, and in the eighth inning, Torres stole second with two outs and scored on a single to make it 5-1.
Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman did close it out. First, it was Chad Green in relief of Montgomery, and Green redeemed himself from his disastrous second inning of work the night before by pitching a perfect fifth and sixth. Then it was Britton who retired all four batters he faced, striking out three to get the Yankees within four outs of a win. Finally, Chapman came in for his first appearance of the series and slammed the door on the Rays and any hope they had of wrapping the series up in four games.
***
Luke Voit decided to join the Yankees in the ALDS as the regular-season MVP candidate hit his first career postseason home run to give the Yankees an early 1-0 lead. I was waiting for Voit, Torres and Aaron Judge to join DJ LeMahieu, Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks as part of the offense in this series and Voit and Torres did. I’m still waiting on Judge.
After the Game 3 loss, Judge said, “Win or gome. Those are the games I like to play in. That’s what you live for as an athlete. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
It was a weird thing for Judge to say considering he entered Thursday 7-for-35 with 17 strikeouts and a .300 on-base percentage in nine career elimination games. (The Yankees have obviously been eliminated at some point in his three postseasons with the team.) In Game 4, Judge continued his elimination game slump with an 0-for-4 performance, though he did draw a walk. Judge struck out in his first plate appearance, rolled over a ground ball to third on a 2-0 pitch in his second, walked in his third, popped out to the catcher in his fourth and reached on an error in his fifth.
The Yankees need Judge at some point this postseason to put together some consistency. The two-run home run off Shane Bieber in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series and the solo home run off Blake Snell in Game 1 of this series aren’t going to hold up forever. That has sort of been Judge’s history in now four postseasons: starting off with a bang and then fading as October goes on. The Yankees need Judge if they’re going to go to where they want to get to. They might be able to win the final game of the ALDS without him providing any production, but it’s hard to imagine they can win another two series with him hitting like this.
***
Aaron Boone had to make four decisions in the game, and they were all rather easy decisions that anyone could have made, but he still had to make them, and they all worked out. So since I’m in a great mood following the season-saving win and ecstatic that my nights aren’t going to be booked with TV Land re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond and King of Queens for the foreseeable future until baseball is played in 2021 (whenever that might be), I will give Boone some credit. The first of those moves was going to Green for the fith. The second was staying with Green for the sixth. The third was going to Britton for the seventh. The fourth was going to Chapman with two outs in the eighth. Everything Boone did worked out. (I can’t believe I just wrote that, let alone in the postseason. It really has been a miracle night.)
For a day, Boone is safe from my criticism (until the Game 5 lineup is announced, so not even a full day). I think he’s safe in his position no matter what happens in this series or this postseason after Cashman recently said he hopes Boone has a 10-year run as Yankees manager, considering Cashman is the one who decides if Boone is the Yankees’ manager. The best thing that can happen on Friday night in Game 5 is that Cole and the Yankees’ offense keep Boone in the dugout and away from the game. That’s the game plan every night: don’t let Boone have a say in the outcome of the game.
***
I didn’t expect the Yankees to win Game 4, but I do expect them to win Game 5. Winning Game 4 was the hard part. Now they have the advantage in Game 5.
The Yankees have the Rays exactly where they want them. OK, maybe not exactly where they want them since I’m sure they would rather have Cole on four days rest instead of three, but they will have their No. 1 starter going with a chance to advance to the ALCS for a rematch against the hated Astros. The Rays can’t feel good about their chances after losing Game 4 in which they had a definitive advantage.
A year ago Saturday, Cole pitched against the Rays in the same situation: Game 5 of the ALDS. Cole’s Astros had blown a 2-0 series lead with back-to-back losses in Tampa, and the best pitcher in baseball in 2019 would take the ball with a chance to advance his team to the ALCS. His line from that game:
8 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 10 K, 1 HR.
Can he please do that again in Game 5 on Friday?
***
I do have to temper my expectations though. I remember walking out of the Stadium in 2005 after the Yankees’ comeback win in Game 4 to save their season in the ALDS against the Angels only to lose Game 5 the following night in Anaheim. I remember thinking they would win it all after routing the Tigers in Detroit in Game 4 of the 2011 ALDS in a game started by A.J. Burnett, only to lose because of an inability to hit with runners in scoring position in Game 5 two nights later. The Yankees have the advantage, but nothing is guaranteed, even with Cole pitching. (Though that’s about as close to a guarantee as you can get.)
There is officially at least one more day of Yankees baseball this season. With Cole on the mound in Game 5 on Friday, there should be at least another four days of Yankees baseball next week.
The Yankees will give the ball to the worst of their starting pitching options to try to save the season and force a Game 5.
The Rays have exposed the Yankees over the last two nights with some help from the home plate umpires. Now the Yankees will give the ball to the worst of their starting pitching options to try to save the season and force a Game 5. The Yankees will be expected to win Game 5 with Gerrit Cole on the mound, but can they even get there?
The high of the Yankees’ Game 1 win has been replaced by the lowest of lows after back-to-back losses have put them on the brink of elimination. They will now need to win two straight games against a team they haven’t won two straight against all season, a team they are 3-10 against in 2020.
I couldn’t watch anymore. I just couldn’t. After Chad Green gave up a two-run home to Michael Perez to put the Yankees down by five runs in Game 3, I knew the game was over. In all honesty, I knew it was over well before that home run.
I knew Game 3 was over when home plate umpire Mark Carlson single-handedly changed the game by calling two should-have-been ball 4s on Luke Voit as strikes 1 and 2 to prevent the Yankees from taking a 2-1 lead. Minutes later, Carlson missed a blatant strike 3 call on Willy Adames, which would have resulted in a strike-him-out, throw-him-out double play. Instead, it gave the Rays runners on first and second with no outs and then Kevin Kiermaier, my most hated Ray, took Masahiro Tanaka deep for a three-run home run to give the Rays a three-run lead. Carlson’s inability to properly identifty balls and strikes changed the game a night after Game 2s home plate umpire CB Bucknor had the worst postseason performance since Robinson Cano’s 2012 ALCS.
Bucknor and Carlson certainly didn’t help the Yankees the last two nights, but ultimately they only served as feul on the fire that is the Yankees’ season going down in flames. The high of the Yankees’ Game 1 win has been replaced by the lowest of lows after back-to-back losses have put them on the brink of elimination. They will now need to win two straight games against a team they haven’t won two straight against all season, a team they are 3-10 against in 2020.
***
Game 2 exposed the Yankees’ inability as an organization to come up with an intelligent and logical postseason pitching plan after they failed to replace Luis Severino, who the Yankees have known since February would miss the season, or James Paxton, who underwent back surgery before the first edition of spring training in 2020 and whose career has essentially been one long injured-list stint with some pitching in between. The Yankees decided that burning Deivi Garcia for the series, their third-best starter, for a one-inning outing, and allowing J.A. Happ, the team’s worst or second-worst starter to pitch the most in Game 2 would put the team in the best possible position to succeed. The offense scored five runs in Game 2, four off of Tyler Glasnow, and still lost because of their idiotic opener plan and another unfathomable night of bullpen management from Aaron Boone who continues to prove he has no business being a major league manager.
In Game 2, trailing 5-4 with a more-than-rested bullpen Boone decided to stick with Happ. Then he went to Adam Ottavino, who he didn’t trust in a close game last week, and then he went to Jonathan Loaisiga, who has done nothing to prove he belongs in high-leverage situations. The combination extended the Rays’ lead from 5-4 to 7-4, and put the game out of reach.
The following night in Game 3, trailing 4-1, Boone went to Chad Green, the team’s third-best reliever. He was willing to go to Green down three runs in Game 3, but not down by one run in Game 2. It was the latest decision from Boone to make absolutely no sense in what has become a never-ending list of decisions to make absolutely no sense since he became Yankees manager. He doubled down on this decision by keeping Green in the game for a second inning, which any Yankees fan can tell you isn’t wise, and two batters later, Green gave up the home run to Perez which forced me to turn the game off.
***
If Wednesday’s start was Masahiro Tanaka’s last as a Yankee, it wasn’t a good one. It was every bit as bad as his start in Game 2 against the Indians last week. No, Carlson didn’t help him out, but he did receive help from Aaron Judge who saved a run-scoring, extra-base hit with an amazing catch. I expected Tanaka to be good, and he wasn’t. He was awful.
The Yankees have the highest payroll in the majors and somehow once again don’t have a postseason rotation. They have Gerrit Cole then a pitcher who has a four-inning leash (Tanaka), a pitcher they think is best used as an opener (Garcia), a pitcher who they should have cut ties with a long time ago (Happ) and a pitcher they don’t trust (Jordan Montgomery). The Yankees clearly view Montgomery as their weakest starting pitching option since they have yet to use him in five postseason games. But on Thursday night in Game 4, with their season on the line, they will give the ball to the pitcher they consider their weakest option.
Even if Tanaka had been great and Boone didn’t let Green throw a second inning, it’s likely the Yankees still would have lost. Since Giancarlo Stanton’s home run in the fourth inning of Game 2, the Yankees have scored five runs over 14 innings, as the offense is once again performing their annual October disappearing act, led by Aaron Judge, Luke Voit and Gleyber Torres.
***
There’s a reason the Rays are the No. 1 seed in the American League playoffs. They were the best team in the regular season and that has carried over into the postseason. They easily dispatched the Blue Jays in two games last week and have easily rolled over the Yankees the last two nights. They are a much better team than the Yankees at a fraction of the cost. They have the best 1-2-3 rotation in the league with Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Charlie Morton to go along with the deepest bullpen in the league. They have a lineup full of pesky hitters, well balanced with righties and lefties, who make enough contact to avoid rally-destroying innings like the Yankees have, and who have enough power to ruin games like they did on Wednesday night.
If you were to construct a team to beat the Yankees, you would use the Rays’ exact roster. The Rays were built to win a championship, and in order to do so, they would have to be built to beat and get by the Yankees, and they are perfectly built to do so.
***
I don’t expect the Yankees to win Game 4 on Thursday night. If they do win, I expect them to win Game 5 with Gerrit Cole pitching, but I just don’t see how they get there. I don’t see how Montgomery is able to navigate his way even one time through the Rays’ lineup, and even if he were able to provide three or four great innings, how are the Yankees getting 18 or 15 outs to save their season? They have two relievers who are capable of getting big outs and at most, those two relievers could give the team 12 outs, and I’m sure that’s two or three outs more than the Yankees would feel comfortable with asking them to get.
Even if you forget about Montgomery, how are the Yankees going to score runs in Game 4? The Rays are going with an opener, a term and strategy they created and revolutionized, and one the Yankees have unsuccessfully tried to use in back-to-back postseasons. That means the Rays are going to trot unhittable reliever after unhittable reliever out of the bullpen for nine innings to try to advance to the ALCS. The Yankees will have to do something they haven’t been able to do the last three nights and weren’t able to do in 10 regular-season games: hit against the Rays’ relievers.
***
Wednesday night’s Game 2 loss felt a lot like last season’s Game 4 loss to the Astros in the ALCS. Yes, the Yankees’ season is technically still alive, but it doesn’t feel like it is. Wednesday night gave me some time to let it settle in that on Thursday night there might not be Yankees baseball until next spring, and given the state of the country, and the owners’ clear mandate they won’t play a full season of baseball without fans in the stands, who knows when Yankees baseball will actually return after their 2020 season ends?
I hope I’m wrong. I really hope I am. I hope the offense we saw in the first three postseason games returns and Montgomery is good enough to give the Yankees length and Zack Britton and Aroldis Chapman can close it out. That’s asking for a lot. It’s asking for a miracle. But that’s what the Yankees will need to win this series and avoid wasting another season in their championship window: a miracle.
