Thoughts after Game 4 of the 2022 ALCS

See ya. (Getty)

You know when I knew the 2022 Yankees were doomed? It wasn’t when they crashed in August or when they waited until the postseason to make a change at shortstop or when Aaron Judge grounded out for the final out of Game 4 of the ALCS. No, it was before Game 4, when Aaron Boone admitted mental skills coach Chad Bohling sent the players highlights of the 2004 Red Sox erasing the 3-0 deficit in the ALCS in an attempt to motivate them. A real thing that happened.

“We watched that video today, oh yeah,” Boone told Ron Blum. “We sent it out to all our coaches and (got) it out to our players. It was just the belief that they had. They had a confidence and you see (Kevin) Millar: ‘Don’t let us win one. Why not us?’”

What better way to motivate the boys than showing them the worst moment in franchise history? Do you think Bill Belichick shows the Patriots the David Tyree catch on game day? I know it’s an entirely different group of players and fans care about this stuff way more than the players but COME ON. Imagine going back in time to, say, Game 3 of the 2004 ALCS, and telling yourself this will be the arc the Yankees take. The 2022 Yankees are watching 2004 Red Sox highlights for motivation. There is no doubt, the Yankees are right where they belong today.

“Not close enough,” Boone said when asked how close he thinks the Yankees are to beating the Astros and winning a World Series. “They beat us and we end up second in the American League. We got to keep working to get better.”

Since 2017 the Yankees are 12-5 (.706) against AL Central teams in the postseason and 9-19 (.321) against all others. That .321 winning percentage is a 110-loss pace. It’s a small sample and it’s spread across six years, blah blah blah yadda yadda yadda, but that’s bad. The Yankees have not won an actual postseason series (i.e. not the Wild Card Game) against a non-AL Central team since beating the Orioles in the 2012 ALDS. It’s been a decade. Some ugly postseason numbers:

• 13 years is the third longest pennant drought in franchise history behind 1903-20 (18 years) and 1982-95 (14 years).
• The Yankees have now been swept five times in a best-of-seven series (1922 World Series, 1963 World Series, 1976 World Series, 2012 ALCS).
• The Astros have eliminated the Yankees in the postseason four times now, the most of any team (the Cardinals, Dodgers, Red Sox, and Tigers have done it three times each).
• The Yankees have lost five consecutive ALCSes dating back to 2010. That is the longest LCS series losing streak in history (the LCS has been around since 1969).

And you know what else stinks? The Astros are not some unbeatable juggernaut. They lose every October! They won their World Series title in 2017 and they’ve fallen short every year since. They keep beating the Yankees in the postseason, then they move on and lose to other teams. This isn’t the 1996-2000 Yankees winning 14 straight World Series games. The Astros can be beaten, just not by the Yankees. 

It will be easy to root for the Phillies in the World Series. Interim manager Rob Thomson spent almost three decades with the Yankees in every role imaginable, then four and a half years in Philadelphia before getting a chance to manage. David Robertson is in the bullpen, shoulda been a Yankee Bryce Harper is in the lineup, and the Astros are on the other side. Feed the Astros to Phillies fans. Might rename the blog Broad St. Blues for a few days. Let’s get to the Game 4 post. Sorry it’s the day after. Blame the rain delay and midnight finish.

1. Nestor’s injury and being one batter too late. I have no idea what will happen with Aaron Boone but I think he’s more likely to return than not. If this is indeed the end of the Boone era, he left us with one heck of a “Boone is a step behind again” moment. This time he stuck with a compromised pitcher juuust long enough to blow a three-run lead in an elimination game.

Nestor Cortes was a bit wobbly in the first and second innings of Game 4, but he put zeros on the board, then he came out and walked the first two batters of the third inning. On top of that, his velocity was down. Quite a bit too. Cortes averaged 91.0 mph with his heater in the first and second innings. It was down to 88.3 mph in the third. That is significant. Here’s the dip:

Boone and the trainer came out to check on Cortes, he shooed them away and said he was fine, and three pitches later the lead was gone and Nestor was out of the game. ALCS MVP Jeremy Pena hit a long and loud three-run homer. It’s a left groin issue (same injury that sent him to the injured list in July) and Boone later admitted Cortes first hurt it warming up in the bullpen for Game 2 of the ALDS. “He said he was fine and then obviously wasn't quite fine enough,” Boone said after Game 4.

“It gradually got worse,” Cortes told Julia Kreuz about the groin injury. “It started locking up on me there in the third. I felt good enough to compete.”

The groin was a known issue! The Yankees knew Cortes was hurting, they knew his velocity was down, knew his command was wavering, and they knew he suddenly slowed his pace and was taking longer between pitches. There were red flags abound, plus the injury would have allowed the Yankees to bring in any reliever they wanted and give him as much time as necessary to warm up. I know Cortes said he was okay, but man, players are always going to say they’re okay and try to gut it out. It’s on the manager to parse the data and make the decision that puts the team in the best position to succeed, especially with the season on the line.

“He's alright. He actually did it I think in his bullpen in his first start against Cleveland,” Boone said about Cortes’ groin injury. “It wasn't as significant as when he went on the IL earlier in the year, and he actually pitched through it well with that game, and then obviously came back on three days rest and was good, was good today. I don't think he was in pain or anything like that. But he just, we noticed all of a sudden the downtick in velocity and more importantly the command, because there's times when he'll drop in velocity and that's not a big red flag. But obviously walking two guys in a row there, unfortunate.”

It’s a bummer Nestor’s extremely successful and extremely fun season had to end on such a sour note, but I’ve already forgotten about the homer. Whatever. The last six and a half months of Cortes were a blast. One of my favorite seasons by a Yankee in a long time. Given all the red flags, Cortes should have been out of the game the first time the trainer visited the mound, but that’s not the way Boone and the Yankees operate. They’re reactive, not proactive.

“I mean, we're so up against it there,” Boone said. “You know, going out with the trainer, we feel like he's sound. No, I'm not going to just pull him out of the game because he isn't perfect. So once we felt like he was sound, obviously the homer, you know. But you don't just automatically pull guys in the middle of the second or third inning when you feel like they're sound.”

2. Bader and Rizzo, and no one else. Harrison Bader and Anthony Rizzo went 5-for-8 (.625) in Game 4. The rest of the Yankees went 4-for-28 (.143). Bader and Rizzo went 9-for-27 (.333) in the ALCS and the rest of the Yankees went 12-for-103 (.117). Those two were the only steady offensive players not just in the ALCS, but really all postseason. Giancarlo Stanton had some moments, otherwise Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres were zeros, the bottom of the order did nothing, and please don’t make me watch Josh Donaldson ever again.

“I'm very disappointed,” Bader told Julia Kreuz after Game 4. “You do your best to put your best foot forward and play hard. And it didn't shake out the way we wanted it to. But it's important to take every ounce of positives from the season and carry it into the offseason.”

Bader scored three runs in Game 4, including hitting what would have been the game-winning solo homer in the sixth inning. It’s not quite at the level of Alfonso Soriano’s go-ahead homer in Game 7 of the 2001 World Series, or DJ LeMahieu’s game-tying homer in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS, but it’s one of those clutch homers that will be forgotten because of the outcome of the game. Anyway, here is the Yankees’ single-postseason home run leaderboard:

1. Bernie Williams, 1996: 6 in 15 games
2. Alex Rodriguez, 2009: 6 in 15 games
3. Giancarlo Stanton, 2020: 6 in 7 games
4. Reggie Jackson, 1977: 5 in 11 games
5. Harrison Bader, 2022: 5 in 9 games

Bader hit five home runs in 86 regular season games, all with the Cardinals before the trade. It’s worth digging into the postseason to see whether the Yankees Urshela’d him and unlocked some power, though we have an entire offseason for that. The Yankees traded for Bader with an eye on the postseason (and 2023) and sheesh, they nailed one. I take back what I said about it being a bad trade. The final outcome stunk, but Bader (and Rizzo) did his part.

The Yankees as a team hit .173/.255/.324 with a 32.4% strikeout rate in nine postseason games and when I read that, I wonder how in the world did they manage to get to the ALCS. I try not to overreact to nine postseason games, but those numbers should prompt the Yankees to take a step back and say okay, what are we doing wrong? Watching the ALCS, it was hard not to notice how competitive the Astros were against quality pitches. They consistently spoil pitchers’ pitches or even get hits against them. The Yankees? Not so much. The offense is the No. 1 reason they were sent packing.

3. Another costly misplay. In Game 3, Harrison Bader and Aaron Judge miscommunicated (it was Judge’s fault) and allowed what would have been an inning-ending fly ball drop in, giving the Astros an extra out and another opportunity. The next batter, Chas McCormick, followed with a two-run home run to open the scoring. You have to play close to flawless baseball to beat this Astros team and the Yankees did anything but in the ALCS.

The Game 4 misplay was even more costly. Jeremy Pena poked a potential 4-6-3 double play to Gleyber Torres with one out in the seventh inning and the Yankees leading 6-5. Torres rushed the flip to second base and Isiah Kiner-Falefa couldn’t catch it. He rushed it because Pena is very fast, and initially I wasn’t sure they’d even be able to turn the double play, but here’s where Pena was when the ball reached Kiner-Falefa at second base:

Yeah, that’s an inning-ending double play. Torres and Kiner-Falefa both screwed up. Torres made a poor flip to second base, but it was still on the bag and catchable. Kiner-Falefa took an awkward route to the bag and kinda stumbled as he got there. Instead of two outs and getting the Yankees back in the dugout with the lead, the inning continued, and it wasn’t long (six pitches later) until the Astros took the lead. The Yankees gave them five outs in the inning and paid.

“Both really fast runners, I think I rushed a little bit myself to make that play,” Torres, who was given the error on the play, told Greg Joyce. “I feel like it’s my mistake. Kiner tried to do his best, but I feel like, all season long, I do that play really easy. Tonight, it felt a little bit rushed. I feel terrible in the moment because I know we can make the double play and finish the inning in that moment. I made that mistake.”

“It was hard. He threw it hard,” Kiner-Falefa told Joyce. “Normally that one all year would be like a soft flip so we can turn it, but kind of rushed it a little bit and I didn’t have time to reach over. If I reached over, I would have maybe caught the ball, but I wouldn’t have been able to stay on the base, so I was still trying to take the option to still get an out. But it was too far for that, so it got by. It’s not his fault though because he played great all year.”

That one play perfectly encapsulates all the problems the Yankees have had the last 2-3 years. Torres is one of several top Yankees prospects who came up, had instant success, then either stalled out or went backwards (Miguel Andujar, Gary Sanchez, etc.). Kiner-Falefa is one of several trade/free agent missteps the Yankees made to paper over their problems finishing off development at the MLB level. The Astros nail player development and outside acquisitions. The Yankees continue to miss the mark, and they missed the mark on that game-changing – season-changing – defensive mistake in the seventh inning.

“Every mistake we made, they took advantage, every time,” Torres told Bryan Hoch. Yup.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Shoutout to the bullpen. I know they combined to give up three runs (two earned), but the defense did them no favors, and Wandy Peralta (two innings), Jonathan Loaisiga (2.1 innings), and Clay Holmes (2.2 innings) soaked up a lot of outs. Loaisiga was an animal. He retired seven of the first eight batters he faced without allowing a ball to be hit out of the infield (the one baserunner was a Jose Altuve infield single that was so close the Yankees had it reviewed). Those dudes, particularly Wandy and Loaisiga (Holmes was limited a bit by the shoulder injury earlier in the postseason), put it all on the line in October. They deserved better … Jose Trevino and Kyle Higashioka went 1-for-28 (.036) in the postseason and oof. Trevino is a great defender and had a few good weeks at the plate in the first half, but the Yankees really should consider adding more offense behind the plate next year. Easier said than done, but I don’t like punting lineup spots … Before Game 4, Aaron Boone said he wasn’t sure why Josh Donaldson was getting the brunt of the criticism for the offense struggling. Donaldson then went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in Game 4 and went 2-for-25 (.120) with 16 strikeouts in his final seven postseason games. He hit .216/.292/.359 (86 wRC+) in just short of 400 plate appearances after coming off the injured list in June and is an unlikable turd. Other than that, can’t really figure out why Yankees fans were on the guy. Big mystery here. Most of the time I find booing cringy, but with Donaldson the last few days, it was therapeutic. My thoughts on booing are along these lines:

• Joey Gallo: Aw shucks, he’s been terrible, but he’s trying his best.
• Aaron Judge in the postseason: I know he’s stunk but come on people.
• Josh Donaldson: Is that really the best fans can do???

Donaldson has $29M coming to him next year ($21M salary plus $8M buyout of his 2024 club option) and I have no idea what the Yankees are going to do with him. They ate a lot of money to dump Alex Rodriguez and ate a good chunk of change to send Jacoby Ellsbury away. Would they eat $29M and release Donaldson? Or are they going to attach a prospect(s) to him and salary dump him to save at least part of that money? I guess we’ll find out soon enough. There’s a scenario in which Donaldson, Aaron Boone, and Isiah Kiner-Falefa are Yankees next season and Aaron Judge is not. I wouldn't call it likely, but the chances it happens definitely aren’t 0%.

5. What’s next? The offseason, obviously. For RAB specifically, I think we should wait a week before jumping back into the usual Tuesday/Friday/breaking news format. The end-of-season press conferences are coming up*, plus there’s a lot of potential for change. Brian Cashman’s contract is up, Aaron Boone may not be on solid ground, etc.

* The Yankees haven’t announced when they’ll have their press conferences but they could be sooner (during the downtime before the World Series, which MLB would prefer) or later (after Cashman is re-signed or replaced). So, I have no idea. We’ll find out soon enough.

I don’t want to jump back into the usual format just yet given the uncertainty. Things have the potential to pop up in the coming days. Plus I could use a little break. So let’s play the next few days by ear and see where the Yankees take us. I’m not gonna abandon you (I have a bunch of smaller news items saved that I want to hit fairly soon), but I am going to leave the coming week TBD.

Also, there will be an Offseason Plan post this year (here’s last year’s), though that’s still a few weeks away. It’s a bear and I haven’t started on it yet, plus I need to wait and see contract option and qualifying offer decisions around the league so I can proceed with some level of realism. Those decisions aren’t due until a few days after the end of the World Series. That post is coming at some point though. Until then, thanks as always for reading and your support. RAB's 16th (!) season is in the books.

(Send your requests for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com. The random Yankee series is on hiatus, but feel free to send in requests for when it returns.)