fbpx

BlogsYankees

Yankees Boast All But One Advantage in World Series

Yes, anything can happen (that’s baseball, Suzyn), but the way these teams match up favors the Yankees, even if the oddsmakers don’t agree.

On Oct. 19, 2017, the 104-win Dodgers routed the Cubs 11-1 at Wrigley Field to win the NLCS in five games. The Dodgers’ offense chased Jose Quintana before he could get an out in the third inning, and Clayton Kershaw allowed just one run over six innings to send the Dodgers to the World Series for the first time in 29 years. That night, the Yankees were in Houston waiting to play Game 6 of the ALCS the next night.

A day earlier, Masahiro Tanaka had thrown seven shutout innings at Yankee Stadium and Tommy Kahnle pitched a scoreless eighth and ninth to blank the Astros 5-0 and give the Yankees a 3-2 series lead in the ALCS. With two chances to win one game in Houston, the Yankees went to sleep knowing if they did, they would set up a New York-Los Angeles World Series.

It didn’t happen. The Yankees scored one run over 18 innings between Games 6 and 7 and were eliminated. The Astros won the pennant and went on to win the World Series in seven games.

The 91-win, wild-card surprise Yankees weren’t necessarily supposed to play in that 2017 World Series. The 104-win Dodgers were. The Dodgers had made the playoffs in five straight seasons and had suffered heartbreak each time, losing two division series, two championship series and now a World Series. The Yankees had made the playoffs twice in five years, as a wild-card team both times.

The following year, the Yankees went down in the ALDS to the Red Sox, losing both Games 3 and 4 at home. In Game 3, their starting pitcher didn’t know the start time for the game as they suffered the worst home postseason loss in franchise history, and in Game 4, their manager showed his ineptitude, foreshadowing what was to come during his tenure. The Dodgers also went down that year to the Red Sox as Dave Roberts thought Kike Hernandez should be his 3-hitter and Ryan Madson should be his go-to, highest-leverage reliever.

In 2019, the Dodgers blew a 2-1 lead in the NLDS to Juan Soto and the Nationals, and not too long after, the Yankees went out in the ALCS to the Astros.

In the shortened season of 2020, the Yankees were eliminated in five games by the Rays, while the Dodgers finally reached the World Series, beating those same Rays in five games. The only issue was the Dodgers’ 60-game schedule was made up of games solely against the weak NL West and AL West without fans in stands and their World Series victory came at a neutral site in Texas. Playing only against the worst competition for two months and then playing the postseason in a controlled environment removed every obstacle that had befuddled the Dodgers during their era of disappointment. When things went back to normal the following October in 2021, they bowed out to the Braves in the NLCS. They were knocked out by the rival Padres in the NLDS in 2022 and were swept by the Diamondbacks in the NLDS 2023.

In 2021, the Yankees were the odds-on favorite to win the World Series. They met those odds by finishing fifth in the AL and third in their own division with their postseason lasting a single game. A year later they were trounced by the Astros in a four-game sweep in the ALCS, and in 2023, they posted the franchise’s worst record in 30 years, missing the postseason completely despite 40 percent of the league getting in.

Now after disappointing eras for both franchises in terms of championships, despite all of their regular-season wins, accolades and individual awards, the two teams are finally meeting in the World Series. The series we nearly got in 2017 has finally come to fruition.

It’s been a long time coming for both teams and for my household. My wife is from Los Angeles and since we met more than 12 years ago, my spring and summer nights have consisted of watching the Yankees at 7 p.m. and then watching the Dodgers at 10 p.m. Coming from a Dodgers season-ticket family, my wife’s love for the Dodgers is equal to mine for the Yankees. For many, this series is New York vs. Los Angeles, the East Coast against the West Coast, the city vs. the beach, Aaron Judge vs. Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Boone against Dave Roberts.

For me, it’s my wife and her family vs. me, and my family and me against her. I have always thought a Red Sox-Mets World Series during my adulthood would be my worst nightmare because one team would have to win, but the thought of losing to the Dodgers, personally, has displaced it. The idea of the Yankees finally reaching the World Series for the first time in 15 years only to lose is depressing enough. Add in if they lose, I will hear about it daily for eternity, and it’s a daunting thought. Fortunately, I don’t think they will.

Yes, anything can happen (that’s baseball, Suzyn), but the way these teams match up favors the Yankees, even if the oddsmakers don’t agree. The Dodgers are the slight favorite in the series because they hold the extra home game, but for as good as the Dodgers were at home (52-29), the Yankees were nearly as impressive on the road (50-31). The Yankees were better on the road than they were at home in the regular season, and this postseason they are 3-1 at home and 4-1 on the road.

The Dodgers don’t have a traditional rotation. In Games 1 and 2, they are scheduled to start Jack Flaherty (28 baserunners, 12 earned runs and only eight strikeouts in 15 1/3 innings this postseason) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (has thrown more than 75 pitches in a game once since June 7). They would be thrilled if that duo can pitch 10 of 18 innings in those games. The only problem is one of the other Dodgers’ four starters in the series is their bullpen. When your best-case scenario plan is to get at least 12 outs from your bullpen each game a traditional starter starts and then needing the bullpen to get all 27 outs in “bullpen game” starts, it’s an unsustainable formula. (Ask Stephen Vogt.)

The Guardians just tried to beat the Yankees with a similar strategy. That strategy got the Guardians one win in five games, and that one miraculous win was the equivalent of the roulette wheel landing on green on back-to-back spins for Cleveland. The Guardians’ rotation pitched only 17 of the 45 innings in the ALCS. The more the Yankees saw the best bullpen in the majors, the more comfortable they got. When the series began, everyone raved about the “Four Horsemen” in the Cleveland bullpen. When the series ended, only one (Tim Herrin) of the “Horsemen” was left unscathed. The Yankees overwhelmed Emmnauel Clase on back-to-back nights. They stunned Cade Smith and got to Hunter Gaddis. The Dodgers’ bullpen will eventually suffer the same fate, especially with inferior arms to the Guardians.

The Yankees’ greatest advantages lies in their starting rotation. They will use four actual starting pitchers in the series, and it’s certainly not outlandish to say all four of their starters are better than anything the Dodgers will start. The Dodgers’ path to a series victory lies in the performance of Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon.

Cole represents the single-biggest advantage between the rosters. But for Yankees fans that have watched him pitch over the last five years, Cole in name and on paper is better than Cole in actuality. It’s hard to completely trust Cole because he has given Yankees fans a mixed bag of big-game and postseason starts since 2020 and Friday night’s Game 1 will be the biggest start of his career, surpassing Game 1 of the 2019 World Series since he’s still chasing a championship.

Rodon is similar in that at times he pitches like someone worthy of a $162 million contract and other times he pitches like the American Kei Igawa. You never really know what you’re going to get from inning to inning with Rodon. He could have electric, unhittable stuff one inning and unravel the following inning. Fortunately, he has fared well against the Dodgers 1-through-4 hitters in his career as Shohei Ohtani is 1-for-3, Mookie Betts is 1-for-19, Freddie Freeman is 1-for-7 and Teoscar Hernandez is 1-for-9.

On paper, the Dodgers’ advantages exist in their bullpen depth and the bottom half of their lineup. But because they are going to rely so heavily on their bullpen and give the Yankees frequent looks at the same arms, their bullpen advantage is negated. The bottom half of the lineup is still a problem.

The combination of Max Muncy, Will Smith, Kike Hernandez, Tommy Edman and Andy Pages is much deeper and more productive than the Yankees’ Anthony Rizzo, Jazz Chisholm, Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells and Alex Verdugo. It doesn’t have to be that way. If Chisholm could start hitting, Wells could hit like he did from late April to late August and Verdugo could put the ball in the air. But based on their most recent performances, the Dodgers have a substantial edge at 5 through 9. But that’s their only edge, including in the dugout.

There are very few instances and matchups in which the Yankees have the managerial edge, though this is one of them. Supporters of Boone love to cite his regular-season record as a way to prove his success in an attempt to disregard his postseason failures. The same holds true for Roberts. Roberts has been an even more successful regular-season manager than Boone and his postseason failures have been as magnified. As someone who watches every Yankees game and nearly every Dodgers game, Boone is a better manager than Roberts.

It’s possible Cole pitches as poorly in Game 1 as he did in Game 1 in the 2019 World Series. It won’t be surprising if Rodon lets his emotions get the best of him and he spirals out of control in Game 2. Maybe Clarke Schmidt and Luis Gil poop their pants on the mound under the bright lights in the Bronx in Games 3 and 4. It’s conceivable the offense could disappear and Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver could turn into Paul Quantrill and Tom Gordon. But for every worst-case scenario for the Yankees in this series, the Dodgers’ worst-case scenarios are more prominent and more likely.

I shouldn’t feel this confident about a matchup, let alone a World Series matchup against the team with the best record in the league and the franchise that has been the best in the league over the last decade. If injuries didn’t exist I wouldn’t be. If the Dodgers had Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow and Dustin May at their peak abilities, I would be fearful. If the Dodgers weren’t using mound visits to give Freeman breathers following plays he’s involved with because of his ankle, I would be worried. If the Dodgers weren’t going to try to win four of seven games with the same strategy (but with lesser talent) that just blew up in the Guardians, I would be nervous. If someone other than Roberts was in the other dugout being asked to deploy that strategy, I would be uneasy. The Dodgers still have the name, but they don’t have the roster they expected to reach the World Series with.

I have spent my entire life listening to John Sterling calling Yankees games, outside of the majority of this regular season during his retirement/hiatus. Now that he only has between four and seven games left in his storied career, I think it makes sense to heed his words of wisdom when calling for the Yankees to win this series: You can’t predict baseball. I hope he’s wrong and hope his final words behind the microphone are “Ballgame over! … World Series over … Yankees win! … Theeeeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!” If I’m right, they will be.

Read More

BlogsYankeesYankees Thoughts

Yankees Thoughts: World Series a Day Away

The Yankees have been off since their win in Cleveland on Saturday, but now they are only a day away from Game 1 of the World Series. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. It feels like it’s been a month since the Yankees last played, and with still one more day to go until Game 1 of the World Series, it feels like it will be another month until they play again.

When the Yankees last won the pennant, they clinched on Sunday night and Game 1 of the World Series was Wednesday. The Yankees will have had six full days off between eliminating the Guardians in Game 5 and playing the Dodgers in Game 1.

2. The only good thing to come of the extra time is that the baseball season is extended and the offseason is shortened. For teams that didn’t reach the postseason, this Sunday will already be four weeks since they last played. By the time the World Series ends, it will have been nearly five weeks since the majority of the league played. Thankfully, the Yankees are still playing.

3. The hype and anticipation for this series has been unlike any other World Series, and the ticket prices are there to prove it. You could pay for a year of college, put a down a payment on a house, buy a boat or … sit in the 100 level at Yankee Stadium for Game 3 of the World Series.

4. There has been talk of the possibility of Shohei Ohtani pitching in this series after missing the whole season as pitcher following Tommy John surgery. Please let this happen. Gleyber Torres, Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, Anthony Rizzo and Alex Verdugo have all faced Ohtani and are 7-for-20 with two home runs and three doubles against him. That was against Ohtani as a star pitcher. Ohtani coming off surgery with no rehab outings? Again, please let this happen.

5. For now, I’m happy for Aaron Boone. At this moment, I even like him. With four more wins, I will even respect him! But if he tries to steal outs in this series, pinch runs for Stanton too early, bats a lefty between Judge and Stanton or gets Tim Mayza and/or Marcus Stroman up in the bullpen, all goodwill will be lost.

And with that let’s get to some questions from readers …

6. Nestor in place of Stroman? – John

It looks like Nestor Cortes will be on the World Series roster. I don’t know if it will be in place of Stroman, but it will be in place of someone.

Cortes last pitched six shutout innings in Seattle on September 18 before going on the injured list and looking like he will need Tommy John surgery.

“We have weighed the consequences that this can lead up to,” Cortes said, “but if I have a ring and then a year off of baseball, then so be it.”

Cortes threw 28 pitches in a simulated game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday, facing Oswaldo Cabrera, Jose Trevino and Austin Wells to simulate the left-right-left lane he will likely be asked to face.

“Coming out of the bullpen, I’ll be restricted to throwing 20 to 30 pitches, so they’re not going to bring me in face three righties,” Cortes said. “I know those are the guys I’m going to face. It’s a tough task, but I know I’m able to do it.”

If he appears in a World Series game, it will be more than five weeks since he last pitched in a game. Even not at 100 percent, Cortes gives the Yankees another viable option in relief. It moves Stroman and Mayza (and Mark Leiter Jr.) down a peg on the option-to-pitch chart. Tim Hill will likely get the Ohtani-Mookie Betters-Freddie Freeman lane the first time a reliever is needed, but then Cortes would get it the second time?

7. Who has the advantage in this series? Is it the Yankees’ pitching health and bullpen? Or the Dodgers offense through this playoffs? – Manny

Give me the Yankees’ rotation health. If injuries didn’t exist, yes, the Dodgers would have the better team because it would mean they would have Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May as rotation options. Instead they are going to try to win it all using their bullpen more than any team has ever used their bullpen before.

The only way the Yankees’ advantage of an actual rotation becomes a disadvantage is if Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon suck, which is possible. Cole was bad in ALDS Game 1, very good in ALDS Game 4 and then bad again in ALCS Game 2. Rodon was bad in ALDS Game 2, very good gin ALDS Game 1 and then so-so in ALCS Game 5. The Yankees have played nine games this postseason and have gotten strong starts in two of the nine (ALDS Game 4 and ALCS Game 1). Outside of that, they haven’t received a single quality start and getting their starters to get outs in the fifth inning has seemed like the equivalent of throwing complete games.

The Dodgers are going to be looking for their bullpen to get at least 15 outs in games when they use a traditional starter and then all 27 outs during bullpen games. The Yankees will see their relievers multiple times in a short amount of time. The Yankees just destroyed the Guardians’ “Four Horsemen” in the ALCS and they will do the same to the Dodgers’ relievers after multiple looks as well.

If Cole and Rodon pitch to the best of their abilities, the Yankees will win it all.

8. What’s your confidence level (1-10 scale) in this World Series matchup? – Osvaldo

My wife is from Los Angeles. Her family are Dodgers season ticket holders. She has never seen the Dodgers win a World Series in a non-shortened season, not held at a neutral site in a season in which they only had to play the NL West and AL West without fans in the stands. She can’t see them do it now. It’s imperative the Yankees win this series for their own history and the legacies of their managers and star players and to end their championship drought. But for me personally, it’s imperative for my own well-being.

This morning I asked my wife the same question of on a scale of 1-10 how confident she is about the World Series. She responded, “7.5.” It was higher than I thought it would be, and it was higher than any Dodgers fan should be. I’m a 9. Yes, a 9. I’m extremely confident about this series. Too confident.

The Dodgers have a good team, but this is probably the worst roster they have had during Dave Roberts’ tenure. Their rotation is in shambles. Freddie Freeman is playing on one leg. Sure, they have Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernandez, but I’m not scared of Max Muncy, Will Smith (who is having a miserable postseason), Tommy Edman and Kike Hernandez or Andy Pages and Chris Taylor. The Yankees just ripped out the hearts and destroyed the confidence of Emmanuel Clase, Hunter Gaddis and Cade Smith, do you think I’m going to be up at night worrying about Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen, Ryan Brasier or Anthony Banda, who faced 10 batters as a Yankee two years ago and eight of them reached base (0.2 IP, 2 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 1 HBP, 1 WP).

The Yankees can lose this series. That’s baseball, Suzyn. But I would be surprised if they did. They are the better team. They have an actual rotation. They have actual starting pitchers. They have the better 1-2 punch. They have Playoff Stanton. And there are only a few matchups in the league where this holds true, but the Yankees even have the managerial advantage.

9. Is it time to give Cabrera a shot in place of Jazz? Maybe give Jazz another game or two and if he doesn’t produce, try Oswaldo? – John

There’s a better chance John (who asked this question) will be given playing time over Jazz Chisholm than Cabrera.

The Yankees had endless opportunities this season to make Cabrera a starter in place of injured players and they never did, despite him hitting whenever he played. He did an outstanding job at first base in the ALDS, and even still, they sat him at time for Jon Berti and then sat him entirely for Rizzo in the ALCS. The Yankees seem to think he’s most valuable as a bench player, who can be inserted into the lineup as pinch runner or pinch hitter or defensive replacement.

As for Chisholm, he can’t suck as bad as he did in the ALDS and ALCS in the World Series. When he’s right, he can be a star, but he hasn’t looked right in the postseason. For someone who called the Royals “lucky” for winning Game 2 of the ALDS and then said the Yankees are going to win the World Series during the ALCS, he sure hasn’t done anything to help them. Chisholm is 5-for-34 with 11 strikeouts in the postseason. He’s going to continue to hit in the middle of the order, so it’s time he started hitting like someone who hits in the middle of the order.

10. Do you think the Yankees winning the World Series would have any influence at all on Soto staying with the Yankees, and/or the Yankees’ eagerness to keep him? Or do you feel winning the World Series might make Hal & Cash feel that they’d now have some currency with the fans & could let Soto walk, which I hope like hell wouldn’t be the case.  – Rich

With each win in October, the Yankees have guaranteed themselves another game of Soto being a Yankee. Now we’re at the point where we have somewhere between four and seven games guaranteed with Soto. It’s depressing to think about, but it’s hard not to think about. I think about it each time he comes to the plate, as I have for each of his plate appearances this season. I never wanted to take his being a Yankee for granted.

In terms of Soto re-signing with the Yankees, I don’t think it would have mattered if they finished in last place or missed the playoffs or lost to the Royals or were eliminated by the Guardians, and I don’t think it matters if they win or lose the World Series. Soto is going to the highest bidder whether it’s the Yankees or Mets or Giants or Mariners or Angels or anyone else.

Yankees fans seem to think there’s no way Soto will sign elsewhere. Mets fans seem to think there’s no way Steve Cohen will be outbid for him. I think there’s a number Hal Steinbrenner won’t exceed for Soto, even with the absurd amount of money coming off the Yankees’ books following this season. If the Yankees don’t win the World Series and Steinbrenner is outbid, he can say, “Well, we couldn’t win with Soto.” If the Yankees win the World Series, he would justify not re-signing him by believing he got a championship out of him, somewhere between six and seven extra games at the Stadium, postseason revenue from TV, merchandise and concessions and thinking he will have a grace period with fans now that the championship drought is over.

The Yankees make more money than any of the other 29 teams, and yet, they are middle of the pack in terms of payroll to revenue ratio. Don’t ever believe for one second the Yankees can’t afford to pay Soto whatever the asking price ends up being. There’s no market smaller than San Diego and in the last six years years, the Padres gave $340 million to Fernando Tatis, $300 million to Manny Machado, $100 million to Jose Musgrove, traded for Yu Darvish’s $21 million average annual salary and tried to give Trea Turner $342 million, and Judge $400 million after 2022 and then gave Xander Bogaerts for $280 million. If the Padres of all teams can spend the way they do, it’s disturbing to think what the Yankees could truly afford to spend compared to what they actually spend.

If Soto isn’t a Yankee in 2025, that will be it for me as a Yankees and baseball fan. If the team that generates more revenue than any other team can’t sign the player who will command more money than any other player, then what’s the point? I don’t care about Hal Steinbrenner’s bank account or financial statements, which are what they are because he inherited the biggest ATM machine in sports by being luckily born to the right parents. He didn’t do anything to become owner of the Yankees, and he has done very little since becoming the head of the franchise, a franchise he didn’t want to manage and his father didn’t want him or his siblings to run. If the Yankees win the World Series, and Soto leaves, at least I will being going out as best I can.

Read More

BlogsYankeesYankees Thoughts

Yankees ALCS Game 5 Thoughts: Ballgame Over, American League Championship Series Over

The Yankees beat the Guardians 5-2 in 10 innings to win the ALCS and advance to the World Series. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. “Pay Juan Soto!” Jazz Chisholm emphatically yelled into Meredith Marakovits’ microphone as champagne and beer showered the duo in the Yankees’ clubhouse.

“I’d ask you how much, but we’ll leave that for another day,” Marakovits jokingly responded, not expecting an answer.

“$700 million!” Chisholm shouted back.

For all of the talking Chisholm has done this postseason, I finally agree with him.

Whether the Yankees end their championship drought after having now ended their World Series appearance drought or not, this can’t be it for Soto as a Yankee. There can’t only be between four and seven games left of him in pinstripes.

Like I have written many times in these Thoughts this season, if he’s not a Yankee in 2025, I will have to retire from the game. A clean break. It’s been a good three-plus decades. If he’s not a Yankee in 2025 and beyond though, I won’t be around to watch. I will learn an instrument or a new language or do whatever people who don’t watch baseball daily from late-March through October do.

Watching Soto this season has been like sitting in first class on an international flight with a cabin, personal bathroom and all-you-can-eat-and-drink options. I don’t want to go back to sitting in the last row of economy in a middle seat next to the bathroom. That’s where Yankees fans were while being forced to watch Jake Bauers, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Billy McKinney, Willie Calhoun, Aaron Hicks, Franchy Cordero and Greg Allen as outfielders last season before the trade for Soto. I’m not going back to that. I will retire as a Yankees fan and baseball fan if I have to go back to that. If the team that generates the most revenue in the sport can’t sign the best available free agent in the sport, then what are we even doing?

“We need him to stay,” Giancarlo Stanton said. “He’s going to stay. We need to bring it home and then we’ll bring him home also.”

2. Soto’s 10th inning at-bat against Hunter Gaddis that ended with a three-run home run over the right-center wall was a perfect summation of Soto as a hitter. He fell behind 1-2, never panicked, fouled off three straight pitches and then on the first fastball of the seven-pitch at-bat, he sent it 402 feet to send the Yankees to the World Series.

“I’d already faced him a couple of times this series,” Soto said. “I knew everything he had, so I was just waiting for the mistake and trying to do damage.”

Jeff Francoeur on the broadcast said Stephen Vogt should walk Soto and have Gaddis face Aaron Judge in the 10th, even though it meant loading the bases. Earlier in the game, Francoeur said Vogt should walk Stanton and pitch to Chisholm. Had Francoeur been managing the Guardians in Game 5, the Yankees likely would have been shut out.

3. Because like Soto, Stanton also hit yet another clutch, mammoth home run in the sixth inning with a runner on and two outs. And to that point in the game the Yankees offense had done nothing. Nothing except have Gleyber Torres inexplicably sent home with no outs (and Judge and Stanton due up) and thrown out at the plate. Tanner Bibee had shut the Yankees out for 5 2/3 innings and had already struck Stanton out twice. Vogt figured Bibee could do it again, and when Bibee got ahead 0-2 from Stanton taking two swings as if he were blindfolded, it looked like Bibee would hand Stanton a hat trick. Instead, Stanton took a slider, curveball and changeup, and then at 3-2, crushed a hanging slider 446 feet.

“That guy’s gotten booed so many times, at the Stadium, road, everything,” Judge said. “He’s been battling some tough injuries along the way, but the guy always shows up when we need him.”

Stanton finished the ALCS with four hits in five games, all home runs. He homered in Games 1, 3, 4 and 5 leading to him being named ALCS MVP.

“This ain’t the trophy I want,” Stanton said holding his series MVP award. “I want the next one.”

4. In order to get the next one, the Yankees are going to have to clean up some things between now and Friday, starting with the baserunning gaffes that plagued them in both the ALDS and ALCS (after being an issue all year in the regular season). Whether the Yankees face the Dodgers or the Mets, they are both a far cry from the Royals and Guardians, and running into outs on the bases is something that can’t happen in the next round.

5. They’re also going to need better starts from their rotation, as they have received two quality starts in nine outings in October. Here are the starting pitching lines from the ALDS and ALCS.

ALDS Game 1 (Gerrit Cole): 5 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR
ALDS Game 2 (Carlos Rodon): 3.2 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 0 BB, 7 K, 1 HR
ALDS Game 3 (Clarke Schmidt): 4.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
ALDS Game 4 (Cole): 7 IP, 6 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 4 K
ALCS Game 1 (Rodon): 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 9 K, 1 HR
ALCS Game 2 (Cole): 4.1 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 4 K
ALCS Game 3 (Schmidt): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R , 2 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR
ALCS Game 4 (Luis Gil): 4 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 3 K
ALCS Game 5 (Rodon): 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K

On paper, the Yankees will have the rotation advantage against both potential World Series opponents. They need to make ensure that advantage happens in actuality. We just saw what happens when your starters fail to give you length in a postseason series: it exhausts the bullpen and forces pitchers like Mark Leiter Jr. and Tim Mayza into games. It also makes the elite relievers lose their eliteness by pitching nearly every day and facing the same hitters repeatedly in a short span. The rotation has to be better.

6. The offense will also have to start coming through with runners in scoring position. The lineups of the Dodgers and Mets are vastly superior to that of the Royals and Guardians. Relying on two- and three-run home runs nightly to cover up offensive issues likely won’t be enough. Leadoff doubles need to score. Runners on third with less than two outs need to score.

7. Boone will have to be wiser. No stealing outs. No early pinch running for important bats only to not attempt to steal. No not starting runners with double play candidates at the plate. Only using Leiter Jr. Mayza and Marcus Stroman in emergency and desperate situations. Remembering that Clay Holmes is an untrustworthy risk. Not needing to bat a lefty between Judge and Stanton. These are all very simple changes.

8. When it comes to Boone, I’m happy he finally got a team to the World Series and with four more wins he can stay as long he wants (as if he isn’t already going to be able to stay as long he wants just for getting to the World Series). It doesn’t mean I won’t be critical of him in the future even if the Yankees win the World Series and it doesn’t rewrite history and change what happened from 2018 through 2022 under his watch, but I will finally respect him if he makes logical choices in the World Series and the Yankees win it all.

9. After the final out of the 2017 ALCS, I wasn’t upset. I wasn’t angry, mad or disappointed. The Yankees weren’t expected to make the playoffs that season and instead they came within a win of the World Series. That surprising, memorable October run saw them overcome a three-run deficit in the wild-card game and an 0-2 series deficit in the ALDS, and they nearly overcome an 0-2 series deficit in the ALCS. They had a young, talented core with budding stars and were less than two months away from acquiring Stanton. I wasn’t sad because it seemed like getting to the World Series was about to become the norm again after an eight-year hiatus.

It never happened.

The core got older, underachieved, became oft-injured and failed miserably. They lost both home games in the 2018 ALDS, hit .214/.289/.383 in the 2019 ALCS, scored one run in Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, got run out of Fenway Park in the 2021 wild-card game, were swept in the 2022 ALCS after scoring nine total runs and then missed the postseason entirely in 2023 with the franchise’s worst record in three decades.

Seven years after that Game 7 loss in Houston when I thought going to the World Series would happen as frequently as it once did, the Yankees have finally reached it. Fifteen years after winning Game 6 over the Phillies, the Yankees are back in the World Series.

10. Getting to the World Series isn’t enough. After taking for granted the appearances from 1996-2003, I learned my lesson from 2004-2008. The last 15 years have been a painfully excruciating lesson in the realization of how hard it is to get there. Once you’re there you better win because you don’t know when you’ll be back.

Seven down, four to go.

Read More

BlogsYankeesYankees Thoughts

Yankees ALCS Game 4 Thoughts: One Win from World Series

The Yankees beat the Guardians 8-6 in Game 4 of the ALCS to take a 3-1 series lead. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. A four-run lead over the 2024 Guardians should be an automatic win. Their offense isn’t any good, finishing seventh-best in the American League. They were shut out in two of five games against the Tigers in the ALDS. They scored five runs total in the first two games of this ALCS. They have no depth, two of the worst regular bats in the league in their lineup and feature one true star. They are built around making contact, putting the ball in play, bloop and infield hits, stealing bases and their league-best bullpen. And when you get to that league-best bullpen and have a 6-2 lead with 12 outs to go, that should be more than enough to secure a win.

It wasn’t.

“No lead is safe,” Giancarlo Stanton said after Game 4. Well, some leads should be. The Yankees’ lead in Game 4 should have been, if not for their manager.

2. A day after the Yankees got to the best reliever in the game for three runs, they got to the best setup man in the game for three more. In a game in which Aaron Boone managed like it was a getaway day game at the end of a long road trip in August, Stephen Vogt managed like he had never managed a game before. With runners on second and third and one out and Stanton due up against Cade Smith in the sixth, Vogt decided to let Smith face Stanton. The alternative was to intentionally walk Stanton and bring in the dominant left-handed Tim Herrin to face Anthony Rizzo with the bases loaded. Vogt let Smith pitch to Stanton and Stanton made him pay, hitting a mammoth three-run home run to left-center field to extend the Yankees lead from 3-2 to 6-2, passing Babe Ruth in home runs per postseason at-bats in the process. After the home run, Vogt went to Herrin, and he struck out Rizzo.

It was a foolish mistake. A mistake that can’t happen in October. But it was a mistake made by the Guardians manager. I don’t care about the Guardians. I care about the Yankees, and the Yankees manager made enough mistakes in Game 4.

3. Boone’s litany of mistakes began with removing Luis Gil after four innings. When you know you have limited options in the bullpen and that your elite relief options are exhausted, you can’t only get four innings from your starting pitcher. How are they going to get 15 outs? I thought after Gil was removed.

“We had a long way to go to the finish line, and frankly, I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to get there,” Boone said.

Oh, you weren’t sure where you were getting five innings of outs from your bullpen from? You had me fooled!

In a vacuum, removing Gil when he did made sense because the top of the order was due up for a third time and the top of the order had plated both Guardians runs the first two times they faced Gil. But the postseason isn’t operated in vacuum, and by removing Gil and asking the bullpen to get five innings worth of outs, the path to victory would be littered with obstacles.

The first arm out of the bullpen was Tim Hill for the fifth to preserve a one-run lead. Fine move. Hill has become at worst the Yankees’ fourth-best reliever. He got through the top of the order on 17 pitches.

I would have gone back to Hill for the sixth given the supposed limited resources available, but Boone decided to go with Jake Cousins. OK. Cousins was good for the Yankees all season and had only appeared in one postseason game to date. He’s rested and when he’s on, he’s great. By the time Cousins entered, Stanton had hit the home run off of Smith, so Cousins wasn’t going into the high-leverage situation Hill was faced with — preserving a one-run lead against the top of the order — as he would be facing 5-6-7 with a four-run lead. Cousins pitched around two baserunners to keep it a four-run game. Nine outs to go.

How would Boone get those nine outs? You would have to think both Clay Holmes and Luke Weaver would be unavailable after having pitched in every postseason game to date and after having been lit up the night before. You would think Tommy Kahnle would be asked to pitch at least the ninth, and if only given the ninth, who would get the other six outs?

Boone sent Cousins back out for the seventh and it was immediately first and third with no outs. A jam, sure, but with a four-run lead, the lead couldn’t be blown with one swing of the bat. With two on, no one out and the Guardians’ 2-3-4 hitters due up, Boone called on Holmes.

4. Why Holmes against the heart of the order? It must have been because Weaver was unavailable. Except he wasn’t. Weaver ended up warming up in the ninth. So if Weaver was actually available, why not Weaver or Kahnle in that spot against 2-3-4 than Holmes?

Aside from Holmes’ strong ALDS and his appearances in Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS, he had been a disaster for months, culminating in his removal from the closer role right before Labor Day. He had unraveled just over 24 hours earlier when he took the loss in Game 3, throwing middle-middle sinkers, whether because of the reversion to his regular-season self or exhaustion from his postseason workload. Cousins had thrown 27 pitches in the game, typically a lot for a three-to-four-out reliever, but he also had pitched once in three weeks. He would never be more rested.

Again, in a vacuum, it made sense to take Cousins out, but a vacuum doesn’t account for the options remaining: an exhausted Holmes and Weaver, a pitcher who wasn’t on the ALDS roster and was just added to the postseason roster that morning in Mark Leiter Jr. and a pitcher who also wasn’t on the ALDS roster and hasn’t been good since May in Marcus Stroman. And those seemed to be the only options because Boone was married to Kahnle in the ninth, idiotically managing for set innings rather than the situation at hand. This is why Gil should have stayed and/or Hill should have thrown more than one inning.

If Boone was willing to use Holmes in the seventh, why didn’t he just start the seventh, clean with no one on? Was Boone trying to steal outs yet again? You bet he was. He said as much after the game, saying he wanted to see if he could “steal a couple of outs” with Cousins. We’re in the seventh year of Boone managing this way.

Holmes looked every bit as bad as he did the night before and really since mid-May. He allowed back-to-back doubles to Jose Ramirez and Josh Naylor and walked Lane Thomas. He faced four batters and three reached. He allowed both of his inherited runners from Cousins to score and gave up a run of his own. A truly remarkable performance. When he left the mound, the 6-2 lead had become a 6-5 lead.

Leiter Jr. relieved Holmes. Brian Cashman’s prized pitching deadline pickup pitched to a 4.98 ERA in 21 appearances with the Yankees, allowing six home runs and 39 baserunners in 21 2/3 innings. He was left off of both the ALDS and ALCS rosters, and had just been added hours earlier due to a calf injury for Ian Hamilton.

Leiter Jr. entered with the Yankees clinging to a one-run lead with runners on first and second and one out and Game 3 hero Jhonkensy Noel due up. Noel hit a ball off Leiter Jr. that the camera led you to believe was going to clear Progressive Field and Lake Erie and land in Canada. Instead, it was caught at the wall by Alex Verdugo. Leiter Jr. got the two remaining outs of the inning to hold the lead at 6-5.

The lead was still 6-5 when Boone sent Leiter Jr. back out for the eighth. After a leadoff double to the light-hitting Bo Naylor, Leiter Jr. got two outs before allowing the tying run to score on a defensive disaster between he and Rizzo on a ball back to the mound.

5. At the time, the game felt over. The Guardians were going to pitch Emmanuel Clase in the ninth, and likely the 10th as well and the Yankees had no one left to turn to except for Kahnle. How would they prevent the Guardians from scoring for multiple innings until Clase was removed because certainly after his Game 3 meltdown, there was no way he was going to be anything other than unhittable like he was for six months.

As expected, Vogt went to Clase, and Rizzo, one of the goats from the eighth-inning defensive miscue, greeted him with a single. Jon Berti pinch ran for Rizzo and raced to third on a line-drive single by Anthony Volpe. (Volpe also had a big hit off Clase in Cleveland in April. Volpe has a knack for getting hits off some of the game’s best relievers. In this postseason, he has looked as good as he did for the first two weeks of the regular season before becoming an automatic out for the next six months. Where has this version of Volpe been since the second week of April?) Berti scored on a Guardians-like infield roller from Verdugo and Volpe scored after Gleyber Torres lined another base hit off of Clase. The Yankees had gotten to Clase on back-to-back nights and had built a two-run lead off of him. But they still needed to get three outs.

6. Boone went to Kahnle for the ninth. Kahnle had finished his work in Game 2 of the series with four straight changeups. In Game 3, he threw 26 pitches, all changeups. He had thrown 30 straight changeups to Guardians hitters and they had nothing to show for it. They would be hunting the pitch in the ninth inning of Game 4.

Kahnle got a favorable strike 3 call to sit down Thomas on six straight changeups, but walked Noel on six more changeups. Andres Gimenez floated the second straight changeup he saw from Kahnle into the outfield to put runners on and first and second with one out. Bo Naylor flew out on the first pitch — a changeup — he saw and Kahnle got Brayan Rocchio to hit a ground ball to second on the third pitch of his at-bat (which featured only changeups). Berti, now playing second, booted the ball initially, but recovered to throw out Rocchio and end the game. Kahnle threw 18 pitches, all changeups. Adding to his Games 2 and 3 totals, he has now thrown 44 straight changeups to the Guardians and they have failed to score.

7. “Obviously last night was a really though loss,” Boone said. “Whatever happened today — win, lose or draw — there’s no doubt in my mind we’d come out ready to roll.”

(Boone does know you can’t “draw” in baseball, right? What are you talking about?)

The Yankees came out ready to roll thanks to Juan Soto who gave the Yankees a 2-0 lead before an out was recorded with a first-inning home run. Each win this postseason means another game of Soto in pinstripes. I’m not ready for his time as a Yankee to end. I never want it to end. Like I have written many times in these Thoughts this season, if he’s not a Yankee in 2025, I will have to retire from the game. A clean break. It’s been a good three-plus decades. If he’s not a Yankee in 2025 and beyond though, I won’t be around to watch. I will learn an instrument or a new language or do whatever people who don’t watch baseball daily from late-March through October do.

8. The Yankees are one win away from the World Series. It’s the furthest any team during Boone’s tenure has gone, surpassing their previous-best of being two wins away in the 2019 ALCS.

“As far as I’m concerned, we haven’t done nothing,” Stanton said. “We’ve got to get it done tomorrow and on to the next.”

Stanton has always said the right thing as a Yankee. His Yankees career has been frustrating due to the unbelievable amount of injuries and missed games, only made more frustrating by seeing what he’s capable of when healthy, like we have seen this October. He’s right, the Yankees haven’t done anything. Being up 3-1 doesn’t guarantee you anything. Just ask Ramirez, whose Guardians were up 3-1 in the 2016 World Series and held a lead in Game 5 before losing that game and the next two and the World Series.

Stanton needs to be batting cleanup for the rest of the postseason. I don’t care who is starting for the opposition and what arm they throw with. Stop forcing lefties into the lineup to separate Judge and Stanton. It was bad enough when Boone was doing it for years with Brett Gardner and Aaron Hicks, and it was equally bad when he stuck with Wells in that spot for all of September and the first seven postseason games. It’s inexplicable that now Jazz Chisholm is there.

9. Carlos Rodon needs to be great in Game 5, the way he was in Game 1. End the series in five and get five days off. Don’t send it to a Game 6 and don’t send it back to New York. A Game 6 takes Gerrit Cole out of the equation for Game 1 of the World Series on Friday.

I don’t know what Boone’s plan is for the non-Rodon outs in Game 5. Weaver is the only non-Stroman reliever not named Tim Mayza who didn’t pitch in Game 4. I would think he would be available for six outs, especially if the Yankees lead and a win allows them five days off. I think at best Rodon can give six innings since he has pitched seven innings once (July 22) since mid-June. Maybe he will surprise us. Maybe he will earn some more of that $162 million and go seven and hand it off to Weaver for the last two.

10. “This team always bounces back and answers the right way,” Judge said. “This was definitely a big win.”

Of course it was a big win. It’s the difference between now needing to win one of three games to go to the World Series or having Rodon start with the possibility of trailing in the series with a Game 5 loss. As for Judge’s comment about the team “always bouncing back,” umm, do you not remember mid-June to early September?

With one more win, we can all forget about mid-June to early September. With five more wins, we can all finally heal from the Boone era. We can somewhat forgive Boone for the last six years of ineptitude and Cashman for the billions of dollars and thousands of games and hours wasted over the last 15 years.

Six down, five to go.

Read More

BlogsYankeesYankees Thoughts

Yankees ALCS Game 3 Thoughts: An Unbelievable Loss

The Yankees dropped their first game of the ALCS in a 7-5, 10-inning loss to the Guardians. Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees. 1. One out away. One out away from a 3-0 series

The Yankees dropped their first game of the ALCS in a 7-5, 10-inning loss to the Guardians.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Yankees.

1. One out away. One out away from a 3-0 series lead in the ALCS. That’s what the Yankees were until they weren’t.

After staging an improbable comeback off the so-called best closer in baseball with an Aaron Judge two-run home run, the Yankees then took the lead off that closer when Giancarlo Stanton followed with a home run of his own. The Yankees were six outs away from being a win away from the World Series.

Those six outs became one when Luke Weaver turned a 1-4-3 double play in the ninth. But after a long double high off the tall left-center wall from Lane Thomas, the 23-year-old pinch-hitting rookie Jhonkensy Noel destroyed a 1-0 changeup, sending it deep into the Cleveland night to tie the game. Up two with two outs and no one on in the bottom of the ninth turned into a tie game.

It was a stunning moment. A true moment of disbelief. But the Yankees still had a chance to put the Guardians on the brink of elimination. They would just have to do something they have never done in the Aaron Boone era: win an extra-inning postseason game.

2. They had their chance. They put two on in the 10th, but stranded them both. And once that happened every Yankees fan knew they were in trouble. The only arms left in the bullpen were Clay Holmes, Jake Cousins and Marcus Stroman. And if the bullpen was able to send it to the 11th, Alex Verdugo and Austin Wells would be due up. After failing to win in the 10th, the Yankees’ next best chance of winning would be if the game would last until a 12th inning.

It didn’t.

Holmes got the ball for the 10th and allowed a leadoff single. After retiring the next two batters he threw a sinker that sunk in the middle of the strike zone and David Fry hit it a mile for a two-run, walk-off home run. Like Weaver, Holmes had been so good in the postseason. But unfortunately for the duo, the clock struck midnight on their impressive run over the last two weeks.

“A loss is a loss,” Stanton said. “An L is an L. By one, two, eight, whatever.”

3. Game 3 was a game of reversion. Weaver reverted into the guy from late June to mid-August who was bitten by the long ball. Holmes reverted into the guy who led the league in blown saves and spent the summer creating spectacular meltdowns. Wells continued his reversion into the early-season version of himself striking out on high fastballs yet again in his only two plate appearances. Anthony Volpe, who has looked so shockingly good this October, reverted back into his regular-season self in his 10th-inning plate appearance, chasing pitches out of the zone (something he hadn’t done all postseason until then) with a chance to give the Yankees an extra-inning lead. Anthony Rizzo reverted back into the untrustworthy glove he was from Opening Day through mid-June when he got hurt. Clarke Schmidt reverted back into the pitcher who can’t get lefties out and can’t provide any length. Aaron Judge reverted back into his MVP self with his two-run home run off Clase. Stanton reverted back into his old self by hitting that home run off Clase and by being able to foul off 100-mph fastballs to extend the at-bat to hit the home run. And for all the praise Boone has received this postseason for “pushing the right buttons,” he managed the game like it was the 13th game in 13 day in the middle of June, reverting back into the manager we have grown to know over seven years.

4. To an outsider, Boone’s bullpen decisions were as stunning as Noel’s home run. To Yankees fans who have watched his every move since Opening Day 2018, they were the norm. Going to Tim Mayza in the sixth inning of a one-run game in the postseason? Alarming, but not shocking. Staying with for a second inning after he allowed a run to score? Appalling, but unsurprising. Allowing Mayza to put the leadoff guy on in that second before going to Tommy Kahnle? Irresponsible, but expected. If Boone was willing to use Kahnle in the seventh inning, why didn’t he just let him start the inning clean? Why did he try to steal an out and steal it with Mayza of all pitchers? Thankfully, Kahnle did his job and then some, getting five outs across the seventh and eighth innings by throwing 26 pitches, all of which were changeups.

5. At some point Weaver and Holmes were going to get dinged up. The duo has appeared in all seven postseason games. It’s unsustainable and also unfair to ask them to get stressful, high-leverage outs every single game against the same most feared bats of a series opponent over and over. At some point the Yankees need to win a game that doesn’t have everyone on the edge of their seat up until the final out. But with the offense being so inconsistent and so top heavy and so incapable of hitting with runners in scoring position, there won’t be any easy wins.

6. The Yankees don’t make anything easy with their baserunning either. After taking an early 1-0 lead in the second inning in Game 3 on an unlikely RBI single from Jose Trevino, Trevino’s big hit was undone by his foolish mistake of getting picked off of first base. It didn’t even take two full innings for the Yankees’ idiotic baserunning to rear its ugly head. I think I’ll let the call from John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman on the play take it from here:

John: “The throw … and they picked off the runner. How do you like that?

Suzyn: “Again.”

John: “Shortstop runs him back … first baseman makes the tag … Where was Trevino going? I’m amazed. I said they had to play a clean game, already it’s dirty.”

Suzyn: “This has been a problem for the Yankees. Someone’s just not paying attention.”

John: “Oh that’s awful and also because Trevino is really slow. Where is he running to?”

No one makes outs on the bases like the Yankees. In the ninth, Volpe was on first and Alex Verdugo hit a ball into the second-base hole. Volpe rounded second thinking he was going to go first to third with ease, but not thinking that the Gold Glover Andres Gimenez was playing second. Gimenez had kept the ball in the infield and the Guardians had Volpe in a rundown between second and third. Fortunately, Jose Ramirez dropped the ball in the rundown when trying to tag Volpe at third and he ended up being safe. Verdugo was able to reach second on the play and Gleyber Torres followed by sacrifice flying Volpe in to give the Yankees a much-needed insurance run. Or so we thought.

7. The Yankees are going to need more than relying on late-game home run heroics to win. If they are going to be so sloppy on the bases and so sloppy on defense then they are going to need to start getting hits with runners in scoring position. In Game 3, they were another abysmal 1-for-8.

So far in October, the Yankees’ wins have been aided by bases-loaded walks (ALDS Game 1), Stanton heroics (ALDS Game 3), the Kansas City wind (ALDS Game 4), wild pitches (ALCS Game 1) and errors (ALCS Game 2). When their crappy AL Central opponents aren’t booting balls, throwing 57-foot pitches and the Midwest wind isn’t swirling, it hasn’t been enough. The offense hasn’t been good and the starting rotation has been a debacle with just two good starts (ALDS Game 4 and ALCS Game 1) through seven games.

The Yankees still control the series. They are still in a much better place than the Guardians. They have the series lead. They have the better offense. They have the better rotation. If Weaver is compromised then so is Clase. The Yankees have the starting pitching advantage in Game 4.

8. Luis Gil hasn’t started since September 28. He has pitched 11 innings since September 17. Hopefully, the layoff has given him time to rest and improve on the fatigue he was experiencing down the stretch. But on the other end of that hope is the fact that Gil hasn’t done well when pitching after extended layoffs. There’s also the fear he will be so amped up to make his postseason debut that he will overthrow early, miss his spots and issue free passes the way Luis Severino did in the 2017 wild-card game. Even still, Gil is a much better Game 4 option than the Guardians’ Gavin Williams, who also hasn’t pitched since September 22 and has thrown 10 2/3 innings since September 17.

9. The Yankees had created their moment in Game 3 and it slipped away. The type of moment that propels a team to a pennant. The last time the Yankees won the pennant, they had that moment in Game 2 of the ALDS when Alex Rodriguez tied the game in the bottom of the ninth against Joe Nathan before winning on a Mark Teixeira walk-off home run in the 11th. They had a second moment in Game 2 of that season’s ALCS when Rodriguez again came through, hitting a game-tying home run off Brian Fuentes. Let’s hope their moment ends up being Game 4 and that Game 3 doesn’t end up being the Guardians’ moment.

“Thankfully, this wasn’t Game 7,” Rizzo said. “This is a series.”

10. The Yankees can put an end to the Guardians’ and city of Cleveland’s season-saving celebration that is taking place as you’re reading this and will continue all the way until the first pitch of Game 4. The celebration needs to end before the series is tied. Game 4 is the difference between putting the Guardians on the brink and turning the ALCS into a best-of-3. It’s the difference between needing to win one of three to advance to the World Series and needing Carlos Rodon to come up big to avoid leaving Cleveland trailing in the series.

The Yankees were oh so close to being six down with five to go. Instead, it’s still five down with six to go.

Read More