Dating back to 2001, the Yankees were 0-5 in playoff elimination games on the road. Of course, this streak came to an end in Detroit when the Yankees beat the Tigers 10-1 on Tuesday, but it was all for not, as the team with the best record in the AL lost game 5 at home 2-3, sending the Tigers to Texas for the ALCS.
Consistent with Yankee tradition, one no name, middle-of-the-road player killed the Yankees in the ALDS. Howie Kendrick played this role beautifully back in the days of the Angels consistently killing the Yankees. In the this year’s ALDS Don Kelly fit into that slot hitting first inning home run in game 5, and generally playing out of his mind at the plate and in the field.
After giving up two solo home runs in the first two innings Ivan Nova departed with forearm tightness leaving Joe Girardi to try to keep the game within reach with a patch work effort from the bullpen. Despite succeeding in that effort, allowing just one more run, they mustered only two runs the whole game as the offense disappeared, especially with runners in scoring position. It always seems that offense disappears in the postseason. Maybe we’ll invest in some pitching instead of spending $31 on a 36 year old 3B and another 17 on a SS with warning track power. Then again, it wasn’t really pitching that was our problem.
This is a tough one to swallow. Luckily I have a great Clemson football team to hang my hat on. That, and the Red Sox collapse. Nonetheless, this hurts.
Yankees are a veteran team, and I wonder if they can bounce back. I wonder if we’ve seen the last of Posada and Swisher in pinstripes. What will our rotation look like next year? CC-AJ-Hughes-Nova-Betances? Will a big free agent be in the mix?
I will say this. With all the talk of adding an extra wild card to each league, can we instead consider simply make the first round best of seven instead of five? It’s more than silly that a 162 games season ends with just three losses.
What do you think of making the league division series best of seven? What does this offseason have in store for New York?
To subscribe to this blog please click the “Follow” button at the top of the right sidebar. If you don’t have a WordPress account, you’ll have to enter your email address. Thanks for reading!
RyanKantor.com 