Thoughts after Game 3 of the 2022 ALCS

The end is coming. (Getty)

The Yankees are down 3-0 in the ALDS and, honestly, that makes the series seem closer than it really is. This has been a dismantling. Maybe the Yankees will win Game 4, but the series is over, and the worst part is not that the Yankees have been unable to beat the Astros since 2017. It’s that the gap between the two teams has never been wider. The Yankees are to the Astros what the Twins are to the Yankees.

Here are the updated ZiPS odds, because I’m a masochist:

The 2022 Yankees are annoying enough to win Game 4 and give everyone hope before getting two-hit and striking out 16 times in Game 5. If the Yankees are going to lose, I ask that they do it quickly. There’s no need to drag this funeral out. Here is the Game 3 post.

1. Another game, another lineup. The lineup shuffling continued in Game 3 and I don’t mean something minor like rearranging the 7-8-9 hitters. The Yankees used their third different leadoff hitter (Gleyber Torres, Harrison Bader, Anthony Rizzo) and third different starting shortstop (Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Oswald Peraza, Oswaldo Cabrera) in three games. In October, that’s unusual.

“I just really wanted to get the third lefty at-bat in there today against (Cristian) Javier, who's a pretty extreme – I mean, he's had a great year against both, but he's especially tough on righties. So I just wanted to have the three lefties in there today,” Aaron Boone said about using Rizzo at leadoff and Cabrera at short. “... More than anything it's just spreading them out a little bit and trying to have a little lineup balance.”

On one hand, the Yankees went into Saturday’s game hitting .169/.252/.338 this postseason and .138/.200/.262 in the ALCS, and yeah, when you do that, the lineup gets shuffled. The Yankees went into Game 3 down 2-0 in the series and a Game 3 loss is essentially a season-ender. You have to do whatever you think you need to do to generate offense. I get it.

On the other hand, the leadoff spot and starting shortstop being unsettled this time of year ain’t great! The Andrew Benintendi and DJ LeMahieu injuries* obviously hurt, though they both missed most of September, so it’s not like they snuck up on the Yankees. Shortstop has been an issue all season and only now, in the season’s most important games, did they consider alternatives. The Yankees made their bed here.

* Benintendi and LeMahieu are big losses, but the Astros are without Michael Brantley, so it works both ways. At this point in the season, I’ve always thought blaming losses (individual games or entire series) on injuries is weak.

Two lefties and one switch-hitter in the starting lineup, everyone spread out, and it didn’t matter. The Yankees were held to three hits in Game 3 and two came back-to-back with two outs in the ninth inning, when the game was pretty much over. The Yankees sent 34 hitters to plate and five – five! – hit the ball out of the infield in the air. This is incredibly weak:

(The red dot in the middle is Harrison Bader’s ninth inning single, which was a ground ball up the middle. These live Statcast spray charts show where the ball is fielded, not where it lands.)

Rizzo has been the Yankees’ only steady hitter this October. Giancarlo Stanton has had a few moments and Bader has socked a few dingers, and that’s it. Aaron Judge has no-showed, Torres too, and Josh Donaldson is cooked. The Yankees are 12-for-94 (.128) with nine walks (.212 OBP) through three ALCS games. They have been held to six or fewer hits in 10 straight games dating back to the regular season, extending the franchise record.

And it’s not just that Houston’s pitching is dominating the Yankees. They’re making it look easy. There are no long at-bats to wear down the pitcher, no tough two-strike pitches fouled away, etc. It’s men vs. boys. The Yankees used a new leadoff hitter and a new shortstop in Game 3, but they could have peak Derek Jeter at both spots and it wouldn’t matter in this series.

2. Beating yourself. “My Own Worst Enemy” played over the Yankee Stadium speakers after the fifth inning and reader, never has between-innings music been more appropriate. You have to play flawless baseball to beat the Astros and the Yankees haven’t. Luis Severino hitting Martin Maldonado with an 0-2 pitch to set up Alex Bregman’s three-run homer in Game 2 was just the start.

Gerrit Cole was on his way to a seven-pitch second inning Saturday when Harrison Bader and Aaron Judge miscommunicated in center field, and Christian Vazquez’s routine fly ball popped in and out of Bader’s glove. It was so routine Vazquez started to jog back toward the dugout*, then had to retreat to first base. It was a gimme out and a quick 1-2-3 inning for Cole, but nope.

* A few people asked me why Vazquez wasn’t called out for being out of the baseline. You can only be out of the baseline when you’re trying to avoid a tag, which Vazquez wasn’t. There wasn’t any intent to avoid the defender there. It was just confusion on a weird play.

Bader got the error but Judge gets the blame. That’s the center fielder’s ball and Judge ran right in front of Bader, and he owned up to it after the game. “I definitely messed him up on that play,” Judge said. The ball was not caught and No. 9 hitter Chas McCormick followed with a shot into the short porch for a two-run homer. It was all the runs the Astros would need. An update on the 8-9 hitters:

• Yankees: 5-for-47 (.116) with 1 2B, 1 HR, 4 BB, 19 K, 1 HBP (.192 OBP)
• Opponents: 13-for-51 (.255) with 3 2B, 2 HR, 8 BB, 7 K, 1 HBP (.367 OBP)

You know, I could live with it if the Yankees were on the verge of getting swept because Jose Altuve was on base four times a game, Yordan Alvarez was hitting balls onto the 4 train tracks, and Kyle Tucker was getting two hits and two steals every night. Those guys are great and when great players beat you, well, that’s baseball.

But Altuve, Alvarez, and Tucker are a combined 3-for-34 (.088) in the series. The Yankees have done an unbelievable job against them! It’s Vazquez and McCormick and Maldonado who are beating them. That’s hard to swallow. The offense gets the blame first, second, and third for this (eventual) series loss, but getting taken out by the bottom of the lineup is rough, man.

The Yankees continued their own worst enemy act in the sixth when Lou Trivino, not Jonathan Loaisiga or Wandy Peralta or Clay Holmes, was on the mound with the season functionally on the line. Cole was very good outside the McCormick homer, but he exited with the bases loaded and no outs in that sixth inning, and Trivino was the first man out of the bullpen.

To be clear, Trivino has been really good as a Yankee, and I think he has been underused this postseason, but boy, given the score and the series, you gotta go with your very best in that spot. You must – must – stop the bleeding (I would’ve gone Loaisiga, personally). Trey Mancini came through with a sacrifice fly and Vazquez punched a two-run single to left. That was that.

(I was fine with taking Cole out by the way. He was over 90 pitches and starting to wobble, and I would rather go with one of my rested very best relievers. In order, I would have gone Loaisiga, Wandy, Holmes, stick with Cole, Trivino.)

Again, the offense is the single biggest reason the Yankees will soon go home, but the unforced errors are part of it too. Judge turned a routine inning-ending fly ball into a baserunner, then the manager who always seems to be a step behind put (at best) his fourth best reliever into the game’s/season’s most important situation. It’s hard enough to beat the Astros. Beating them while also having to overcome your own mistakes is nigh impossible.

3. Rapid fire thoughts. Ceremonial first pitch update: CC Sabathia in ALDS Game 1, David Cone in ALDS Game 2, Willie Randolph in ALDS Game 5, and Hideki Matsui in ALCS Game 3. I appreciate the attempts at good vibes, but it ain’t working. Maybe the Yankees should go in the direction with a villain and have Aroldis Chapman throw the first pitch prior to Game 4. He’s not doing anything important right now … And finally, one last Game 4 weather update. There’s still rain in the forecast, though it’ll be on and off, and even if there’s not a clear window, the rain might be light enough to play through. It’s a 7pm ET start time and the rain will begin sometime around 3pm ET, and continue until early Monday morning. MLB’s priority is playing an uninterrupted nine innings and Sunday’s conditions seem perfectly designed to make the postponement decision as difficult as possible. It’s going to rain, but when and how heavily? I really don’t want to sit through another long delay like in the ALDS again. If MLB is going to bang it, do it early, por favor.

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