New York Yankees designated hitter Aaron Judge walks back to the dugout after being called out on … [+]
Elimination day does not occur often for the Yankees during the regular season, though for the first time in their run of 30 winning seasons that is in serious jeopardy, their postseason elimination has been inevitable since about mid-August.
The elimination came and went at the end of a wet and sloppy game befitting the type of season endured by the Yankees, one with 37 injured list stints where this time the replacements could not keep pace like in 2019.
“If I’m not standing here talking to you guys after a championship, it’s a failure,” Aaron Judge said Sunday after being eliminated for the first time as a captain. “After all of the work you’ve put in the offseason, training, preparation, coming out here on a daily basis, rain or shine, to play a game — it’s about bringing a championship back. That’s why we play. That’s why I’m here.”
The last elimination day was in the early morning hours of Oct. 24 when fans watched the Jets beat the Broncos during part of their rain delay entertainment and then watched the Yankees get eliminated in an humbling four-game ALCS sweep.
It was the fourth time the Yankees were eliminated by the Astros, who knocked them out of the wild-card game in 2015 and the ALCS in 2017 and 2019 before Judge made the final out of their season that began with 64 wins in 92 games by the All-Star break.
A year after he hit 62 homers to break Roger Maris’ single-season AL record and captivated audiences Judge stood in the middle of the clubhouse – the same place where nearly 14 years ago the Yankees celebrated clinching their first AL East title in the new Yankee Stadium a year after missing the playoffs in the final year of the original Yankee Stadium.
The Yankees experienced 22 clinching celebrations of some kind since 2008, varying from winning a division series, a wild card game or clinching a division or securing a wild card spot. Only one of them is in a season that does not meet their standard of failure and that was the wild celebration late on Nov. 4, 2009 and into the early hours of Nov. 5, 2009.
This year is the failure of all failures regardless of how many wins they end up or if the Yankees make it 31 straight winning seasons. The most they can get is 85 wins and winning seven straight is a tall order since the Yankees only own three winning streaks of more than three games.
New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole watches the action from the dugout during a baseball game … [+]
Realistically the season turned downward in three places.
There was the moment on May 28 when Anthony Rizzo collided with Fernando Tatis Jr. on a pickoff play that eventually led to his concussion and being shut down for the year. For two months Rizzo could not figure out what caused the worst slump of his career, which took a break only on July 23 when he got four hits.
Then came the eighth inning at Dodger Stadium when Judge crashed into the right field wall chasing down a fly ball by J.D. Martinez. It led to a fractured toe and assured that he would not get a chance at matching the 62 homers but also cost him eight weeks.
The Yankees went 19-23 without him, though a stretch of nine wins in 14 games moved them to 49-39 after beating the Orioles on July 4. They were seemingly getting closer to being whole again with Carlos Rodon debuting three days later but it was also the early stages of a 2-9 skid that gave off the first signs an elimination might be coming before Oct. 1.
“It never really got going,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We lost Judgie, and some other guys went down, so it made it challenging.”
The thing that made it inevitable was the 2-7 road trip through the South Side of Chicago, Miami and Atlanta. It left the Yankees one game under .500 and was about halfway through their first nine-game losing streak since 1982.
The Yankees played better for a bit after the ninth straight loss, going 10-4 with a go figure sweep in Houston and Jasson Dominguez’s brief but fairly impressive arrival before being shelved with a major elbow injury.
The Yankees returned for their final games at 76-74 and facing two teams intent on taking care of things in their respective wild card race and Sunday the Diamondbacks did so while also officially declaring the Yankees down for the count with a week to go before an offseason that starts earlier than anticipated and figures to be fairly interesting.
“We viewed ourselves as a championship club, and this year we underperformed massively,” Rodon said. “It just has not been good.”