By the time you read this, the Yankees may have been eliminated from post-season play.
By the Cleveland Guardians.
Yankee fans will now offer excuses and less-than-truthful reasons why the Bronx Bomber-less failed once again.
It’s the same old story — lousy decisions, non-clutch performances and an offense way too reliant on the home run.
But this playoff experience, assuming the Yanks fail to come back and make it to the ALCS, can be most attributed to the absence of a closer. The days of Mariano Rivera are long gone.
But to go into a playoff series with no closer and no real plan on how to deal with the lack of a closer is unforgivable.
Yeah, fire Cashman. Fire Boone. Hell, I’d fire Steinbrenner and his ownership team if I could.
How could they allow Aroldis Chapman to not be on the post-season roster? OK, I agree Chapman is not the closer he once was, BUT — he would have been a much better option than any of the inexperienced arms the Yanks threw out there in this series.
There is no excuse for a Yankee team to go into the ninth inning with a two-run lead and fail. It was painful to watch.
The Yankees sent their “ace” — Gerrit Cole — to the mound Sunday night to try to extend the series back to New York. Even if Cole had his best stuff, he likely didn’t go nine innings. That means somebody in that awful bullpen had to come in to try to preserve the victory — assuming the Yanks were leading in the game.
My fear is that this season will have ended far sooner that it should have. And I also fear that Cashman and Boone will return and they will be given dispensation once again as Yankee fans and management blame their demise on “all those injuries, especially to the bullpen.”
And that is just the tip of the Yankees bleak future. It will get worse.
My biggest fear is that Aaron Judge, the legitimate all-time single season home run king, is going to walk out of Yankee Stadium and sign with a team that appreciates him and will pay him what he is worth and that is run by competent baseball people.
It would not surprise me at all to see Judge bid farewell to the Yankees. This kid is everything a team/organization could want to be the face of the franchise, as they say. He’s articulate, polite, and he can hit a baseball to the moon. When the Yankees failed to recognize all that Judge means to the team, the fans and to baseball, that sent a message to Judge — and not a good message at that.
So when No. 99 walks, I will walk with him. So will a lot of loyal Yankee fans who are tired of the incompetence of the management/ownership in the Bronx.
Look at what is going on in MLB this year — the Padres and Phillies are in the NLCS for crying out loud.
And have you noticed the one thing that differentiates the Yankees from all other teams? The Yankees’ players are not allowed to have facial hair, except for a neatly-trimmed moustache, of course. And no long hair! Get real already. Players enjoy playing where they can be their own selves. They want to express themselves and if that means longer hair and a beard, so be it.
The Yankees archaic rules need to be eliminated. Trust me, there is nothing intimidating about a clean shaven, well-coiffed closer, or a squeaky clean “slugger” hitting .210 and striking out four times a game.
So when Aaron Judge decides to pack his bags for the left coast, I’ll be on the same flight. I hope he grows a beard too. And I hope he wins the World Series.
Yankee Stadium used to be called the Bronx Zoo. Not because of the menacing looking players on the field, rather because of the bad or goofy behavior of some of the players and fans.
I hope the Yankees won Sunday night and I hope they win Game 5 in New York and advance.
Even if they will once again be eliminated by the Houston Astros.
But no matter what, if they fail again, it will be time to clean out the House That Ruth Built.