Thoughts following the 2021 Wild Card Game

Thanks for coming, Gerrit. (AP)

I will miss the Yankees in general but I will not miss this team specifically. What a joyless slog of a season. Good riddance to the 2021 Yankees. The Yankees lost the AL Wild Card Game last night and it wasn't competitive. The Red Sox took control four batters into the bottom of the first inning and never gave it up. They were the better team start to finish.

“We just didn’t get the job done, all season long,” Aaron Judge told Bryan Hoch following the loss. “We’ve got to keep working. Individually and as a team. There’s a lot of things that we need to continue to work on and continue to improve to push us to the next level. So I guess it’s back to the drawing board.”

The Yankees came out of 2017 with a slew of talented young MLB players, a top ranked farm system, a ton of payroll flexibility … and this is the result? Four years of rolling in the mud of the Wild Card race and luxury tax resets and heartbreaking postseason losses? At least last night wasn’t heartbreaking. It was quite predictable. It was the 2021 Yankees to perfection.

Since the current core emerged in 2017, the Yankees are 9-2 against AL Central teams in the postseason and 9-13 against everyone else. They haven’t won a postseason series against a non-AL Central team since the 2012 ALDS against the Orioles. The AL Central is the division of frauds. You can’t take those teams seriously. What does that say about the Yankees?

To punch their ticket to the postseason the Yankees needed a walk-off infield single to win a 1-0 game against a team that was actively trying to lose because they wanted to go home. The offense scored three runs in the final 22 innings of the season (two solo homers) and eight runs in their final four games. Those stretches happen far too frequently to win anything meaningful.

Aaron Boone said the “league closed the gap on us” last night and that is delusional. The gap is only growing wider and the Yankees are on the wrong side of it. They routinely get embarrassed by their rivals in the postseason, the “lol strikeouts don’t matter” offense-building philosophy is straight out of 2005, and there’s no killer instinct. The Yankees are pushovers. They are a team in descent in a division of teams on the rise.

So now begins an offseason with more uncertainty than any in recent memory. When is the 2022 season even going to start? A work stoppage is looming. The Yankees are either going to do an honest self-reflection and make real changes, or they’ll continue to push the line that they will be where they want to be as long as they play well. Only the former can lead to success in 2022.

I feel more relief than sadness this morning and I don’t think baseball has ever made me feel this way. These Yankees were never going to make a deep run -- does anyone really think they could have beaten the Rays in the ALDS? -- and I’ve grown tired of holding out hope, only to have it not be rewarded. Here are my thoughts on last night. A long offseason awaits.

1. Cole’s clunker. Gerrit Cole insists his hamstring isn’t an issue -- he said it again last night -- but the numbers do not lie. This guy was chasing a Cy Young before the hamstring acted up, and he’s allowed 19 runs in 22.2 innings since. If Cole is trying to gut it out because he’s the ace, that’s admirable, but doing it in a win or go home game is dumb.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” Cole told Bryan Hoch. “We’re all going through whatever we've had to overcome to get to this point. The other team is dealing with the same kind of situation. When it's all said and done, I didn't perform the way I wanted to perform tonight.”

Right away it was clear Cole was not sharp. Kyle Schwarber popped up a middle-middle heater to lead off the first inning, then Cole got ahead in the count 1-2 on Rafael Devers and couldn’t put him away. The changeup Xander Bogaerts hit out was a junk pitch. An 88.8 mph changeup here is a batting practice fastball. Put it on a tee and set up an L screen.

I don’t get the pitch selection. I know the Yankees are all about changeups these days, but a 2-1 changeup when you haven’t even shown the guy a fastball yet? (The first three pitches of the at-bat were a curveball and two sliders). Bogaerts is the third righty to hit a homer against Cole’s changeup and the first since 2017. It basically never happens, then of course it happened. Beat on his fourth best pitch.

Cole struck out the side in the second, though he also gave up a loud double to Kevin Plawecki after getting ahead in the count 0-2. Gave him a fastball middle-away and he drove it the other way. Cole’s fastball got pounded in Toronto last week and his breaking stuff hasn’t been reliable since the hamstring injury. Same story last night. His pitch locations the first two innings:

I thought Cole should’ve been out after the second inning. He was all over the place, it was very clear he wasn’t sharp, and the lineup was about to turn over again. The bullpen is deep and has been very good lately, and there’s no margin for error in an elimination game. Pull him and let the bullpen take over, and try to keep yourself in the game.

Instead, Aaron Boone did that thing where he leaves the pitcher in too long, and all three batters Cole faced in the third inning reached base. Schwarber hit a long homer (he went up and got an elevated heater, it wasn’t a bad pitch, credit to Schwarber there), Enrique Hernandez beat out an infield single, then Devers walked again. Shoutout to Clay Holmes for escaping the jam.

Opponents hit .131/.191/.214 in two-strike counts against Cole this season. Last night they went 2-for-6 with a homer, a double, and two walks in two-strike counts. The putaway pitch just wasn’t there and Boston’s better hitters did damage against poorly located two-strike pitches. The Red Sox had success in two-strike counts in a way the Yankees just can’t with their current roster.

If Cole’s hamstring is still bothering him, it would be a relief, because then there’s at least an explanation. If he’s healthy and this is just how he performed down the stretch in a postseason race, then hoo boy, that’s a problem. Cole’s performance slipped following the sticky stuff ban but he wasn’t bad. But once the hamstring acted up, he wasn’t the same the rest of the season.

Two things are true: Cole had a really good year and Cole was a letdown down the stretch. He had too many bad starts in important games, and while we could argue until we’re blue in the face about why they happened (hamstring, bad timing, can’t handle New York, etc. etc.), it doesn’t change that they happened. He is a primary reason the Yankees are going home.

“This is the worst feeling in the world,” Cole told Hoch. “It happens to 29 teams each year, going home early and not achieving your ultimate goal. There’s nothing you can do to make it feel any better. You can’t be afraid of this feeling. You’ve got to get through it to get that championship.”

2. Shut down by Eovaldi. When the Yankees faced Nathan Eovaldi last weekend, 12 of the 17 batters he faced swung at the first or second pitch. He’s an extreme strike-thrower and he won’t let you sit back and work the count. Try that and you’ll be behind in the count 0-1 and 0-2. Here are Eovaldi's pitch locations in the first two pitches of at-bats last night:

What are you supposed to do when a guy is filling up the zone that much early in the count? You have no choice but to be aggressive, and 17 of the 20 batters Eovaldi faced swung at the first or second pitch. The problem wasn’t the aggressiveness. The problem was the aggressiveness didn’t lead to anything but outs (until Anthony Rizzo’s first pitch homer).

Last weekend Eovaldi generated only three swings and misses among 59 pitches. The Yankees were aggressive early in the count and also his splitter and curveball weren’t cooperating. They were on last night, and he got 13 whiffs among 71 pitches. Eovaldi has been great against the Yankees -- not good, great -- and there was no answer last night. He was on the attack.

3. Nevin’s send. My goodness what a terrible send by third base coach Phil Nevin in the sixth inning. I am generally all for pushing the envelope -- I might be the only person on Earth who defends the contact play -- but in that spot, given the score (3-1) and the stakes and everything, you better be 100% sure the run’s going to score, and, welp:

"You can't play scared and you can't play afraid. You gotta take chances,” Aaron Judge told Marly Rivera after the game. “That did not win or lose the game for us. I am trying to score there, and I did not get the job done."

You can’t play scared, Judge is correct, but you also can’t play stupid. You’re down two runs in a ballpark where no lead is safe, and you’re getting a crack at a reliever who was pitching for the fifth time in seven days (Ryan Brasier). With two outs? Sure, go for it. With just one out though? No way. Gotta hold up there. Some Yankees win probability numbers:

• Before Stanton's at-bat: 19.3%
• After Judge thrown out: 15.2%
• If Judge is held at third (runners at corners with one out): 27.9%

Giancarlo Stanton wound up taking second base on the throw home, though he would have had to stay at first on the hit had Judge been held up because the relay home never would’ve been made. Point is, that’s a significant swing in win probability. The difference between what happened and what could’ve happened was 12.7 percentage points. That’s massive.

“The ball coming in looked like it was going to be an in-between hop to (Xander Bogaerts),” Aaron Boone told Greg Joyce. “Bogaerts did a good job of creating a hop, catching it clean, and throwing it home and getting him. That kind of squashed a potential rally.”

Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. Maybe Joey Gallo would’ve struck out and Gleyber Torres would’ve popped up, and we’d all complain the Yankees should’ve sent Judge after they stranded the runners. I don’t think so though. I thought that was a pretty clear hold. Everyone was still a bit shook from the quick hook on Nathan Eovaldi and the Yankees were beginning to rally. Then that play took the wind right out of their sails.

Credit to the Red Sox. They made a great relay. It was perfect. That’s not the time to push the envelope for one single run though. The Yankees bailed Brasier out and they never threatened the rest of the night. After that, 10 of the final 11 batters they sent to the plate made outs and those 11 batters saw only 38 pitches. The quit is strong with this team.

"We almost got burned, but (Enrique Hernandez) made a great play and (Kevin Plawecki) a great tag,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told Ian Browne. “And then after that, everyone settled down and we got 27 outs.”

4. Giancarlo’s big night. Giancarlo Stanton came to play last night. The rest of the offense? Not so much. Stanton went 3-for-4 with two singles and a homer, and if the game was played in the Bronx, he would’ve gone 2-for-4 with two homers and a loud foul ball. Statcast actually says his first inning single wouldn’t have left any park. The other single though? A homer in 11 parks.

“That’s a shoulda woulda game that you can play,” Stanton told Bryan Hoch about the two singles possibly being homers in Yankee Stadium. “Each game counts. It doesn’t matter if it’s freakin’ March or April. All we needed was one more and we would have had this at home. They’ll come back to bite you.”

Stanton went 3-for-4. The rest of the Yankees went 3-for-28 (.107) with Anthony Rizzo’s home run and infield singles by Aaron Judge and Gio Urshela. Statcast says they traveled a combined six feet. The Yankees did not draw a walk after leading baseball in walk rate during the regular season, and only three of the 32 men they sent to the plate saw a three-ball count. Weak.

Judge and Stanton carried the Yankees all season offensively. Others chipped in now and then, but those two were the only constants. Judge had a quiet night last night aside from the infield single. Stanton did his part and is now a .297/.373/.734 (185 wRC+) hitter with nine homers in 18 career postseason games, which is fun, but it’s gone to waste. Rizzo hit a homer and that was it for the rest of the lineup.

One game is one game and anything can happen, though this followed the same offensive script as every recent Yankees postseason exit. Most teams get eliminated because they don’t hit, that’s how it works, but I feel like I’ve seen last night’s game about 10 times the last five postseasons. The offense needs an overhaul. I don’t think that is debatable at this point.

5. On Boone’s future. Aaron Boone hit one of the biggest, most iconic home runs of my lifetime. It is one of my most vivid sports memories. I remember exactly where I was, who I was with, where everyone was sitting, etc. Boone did that and I still don’t want to see him at Old Timers’ Day. It’s remarkable how he’s gone from hero to please don’t make me look at him ever again. Maybe it’s just me.

Hiring Boone is Brian Cashman’s biggest mistake. It is worse than any single player transaction given how much all the core players (other than Aaron Judge) backslid under Boone, and how the Yankees became a punchline in October. That’s not all on Boone, but he oversees the on-field operation, and the decline is undeniable. Irreversible damage the last four years.

The Yankees had a Ferrari in 2017 and they gave the keys to a 16-year-old who just got his learner’s permit because he sweet talked them during the interview, and now it’s banged up and we’re wondering whether it can be salvaged. The question is not should the Yankees fire Boone. Of course they should. The question is do any other teams even bother to interview him?

“Obviously my contract is up, and I haven't had any conversations with anyone about that, so we'll see,” Boone told Bryan Hoch last night. “I love being here. I love going to work with this group and love going to work with this group of players. But we'll see.”

When the Yankees hired Boone, Cashman said it was to connect with the younger players -- his exact words were “(we want) the ability to fully engage, communicate, and connect with the playing personnel” -- and all the young players Boone was tasked with connecting with have gone backwards. If Boone has succeeded at connecting with the players, it hasn't translated to wins. They've underperformed two years in a row now.

At best, Boone is an eminently replaceable in-game manager. There’s nothing special about his in-game strategy and I’d argue he actively hurts his team with his slow hooks, like last night. He did his patented one batter too long thing with Luis Severino and Jonathan Loaisiga. I see no way you can argue Boone gets the most out of his roster. It’s quite the opposite, in fact. The Yankees routinely look unprepared and are far too sloppy.

Cashman and Hal Steinbrenner went to bat for Boone in July, which suggests he’s safe, though July was a long time ago. A lot has happened since then, including another quick postseason exit. The Yankees moved on from Joe Torre and Joe Girardi when their contracts expired. They could easily walk away from Boone now. No need to “fire” him. You go in another direction.

Cashman’s worst mistake is hiring Boone and it should remain that way, because bringing him back would be an even bigger mistake. It would be a full-throated endorsement of mediocrity and failure, a sign the Yankees are oblivious (or indifferent) to their problems. Replacing Boone alone doesn’t fix everything, not even close, but it is an obvious starting point.

Boone is an ordinary manager and the Yankees are an ordinary team. There is no getting the last four years back and the Yankees retaining Boone would make the next however many years even worse. We have four years of evidence that you can’t win with him. We’ve seen enough postseasons to know the Yankees are at a disadvantage in the dugout.

6. Rapid fire thoughts. Only 10 strikes among 27 pitches for Jonathan Loaisiga. What was that about? Maybe it was just a bad game. I dunno. He threw 15 of his first 23 pitches for balls and Aaron Boone saw that and said, you know what? One more batter. Another four-pitch walk followed and that helped ice the game. When Loaisiga’s lost it, you’re pretty much toast, but again, that Boonie is always one batter too late … Why did Kyle Higashioka hit in the fifth inning? Gerrit Cole was out of the game, so there was no personal catcher situation, and the Yankees were down 3-0. They needed offense and Higashioka hit .167/.218/.327 (46 wRC+) the final five months of the regular season (true story). There were three catchers on the roster. Give Gary Sanchez a chance to run into one with two outs and get a run on the board. By time Gary pinch-hit later in the game, the Yankees were down five with six outs remaining. By then it was too late to matter. Positively insane Rougned Odor got a pinch-hit at-bat before Sanchez last night … And finally, the pennant drought is up to 12 seasons, third longest in Yankees history. They went 18 seasons without a pennant from 1903-20 and 14 seasons without a pennant from 1982-95. I know 12 years isn’t that long and we’re all spoiled, but the team's brand is built on winning the World Series. Being good enough to get to the postseason and hoping you run into a title once in a while isn’t good enough for me. As fans, we pay among the highest ticket prices and television subscription services prices in the sport, and I want more return on that investment. Don’t ever feel bad for wanting your favorite sports team to do more, or thinking they should be better. The response to yet another wholly unsatisfying season can’t be cosmetic changes and running the same basic roster back again in 2022. This group had its chance. It’s time to close the book on his group and begin anew.

(Send your requests for Tuesday's random Yankee series and questions for Friday's mailbag to RABmailbag at gmail dot com.)