Playoff life comes at you fast. Especially in the treacherous, best-of-three Wild Card round.
The MLB postseason has just started – they only recently hung the playoff bunting at Yankee Stadium, for crying out loud – and the Yankees are already facing elimination after losing to the Red Sox, 3-1, in Tuesday night’s opener.
A season in which they tied for the best record in the American League – but lost out on a first-round bye because they did not hold a tiebreaker – is suddenly, perhaps cruelly, in peril. Boston, a club that has dominated the Yankees this season, can finish them off Wednesday night in Game 2. In the Bronx, no less.
The Yanks are tangling with a historic rival, one that beat them 9 of 13 during the regular season. And history. Recent history, anyway – in the previous three years of this current MLB playoff format, no team that lost the opener of a Wild Card round ended up winning the series.
We’ll see, of course, if these Yankees can buck that trend. And, even though they knew coming into this series how difficult it would be, they say they can do it.
“We are going to show up (Wednesday) and I expect us to do pretty well,” Aaron Boone said at his post-game press conference. Later, he added, “Look, we have been playing these types of games for a while now. We have been playing with a lot on the line seemingly every single day.
“So (Tuesday) was a great baseball game that we just couldn't get that final punch in. So we will be ready to go, and I expect us to come out and get one (Wednesday).”
Boone’s right about the quality of the contest. It was a taut game filled with brilliant pitching by Boston’s Garret Crochet and Yankee ace Max Fried. Anthony Volpe gave the Yanks an early 1-0 lead with a homer off Crochet. But the Yankee bullpen later surrendered that lead. The Yanks loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth inning against old buddy Aroldis Chapman, but Chapman, maybe baseball’s best reliever this year, escaped.
Before the game, Boone opined that the 2025 version of the Yankees might be the best he’s ever taken into the playoffs in his tenure as manager, which started in 2018 and has included an October trip every season but one. They won their final eight games of the regular season, were healthy, full of mutual trust and confidence. They also, he said, have “different ways to beat ya.”
Better pluck one from the pile Wednesday night. Maybe it’s Carlos Rodón, the lefty starter who’s taking the ball against Brayan Bello of the Red Sox. Rodón had a terrific season, but still makes some fans nervous with a big start looming. Maybe he needs to be great to save this Yankee season.
Rodón had some October moments during last year’s run to the World Series, but he was also so hyper during a playoff start against the Royals that it seemed to wobble him. Boone says Rodón has learned.
“He has done a really good job since he has been here of learning from some stumbles, learning from some good times,” Boone said. “Last year – I am hoping that serves him well and just really slowing things down, really controlling moments, because that’s an important thing to have.”
Perhaps we should offer these Yankees the benefit of the doubt. After all, they resurrected themselves later in this season, even after some of their own fans wrote them off as they fumbled their AL East lead and plunged into a morass of poor play. They pushed aside their problems with fundamentals and, while they obviously haven’t solved all their bullpen issues, added help there at the trade deadline.
Their superlative offense, which led baseball in runs per game, covered up some deficiencies, too. By August, the Yanks were on fire, started beating good teams and finished 34-14 over their final 48 games, best in MLB.
“We’ve been doing it all year,” said Aaron Judge. “There’s a lot of veterans in this clubhouse. We’ve been through some stuff. Been to the World Series, been through some tough moments. We’ll go out and play our game. We’ll be good.”
If they’re not, they’re cooked. Seems weird for it to get so real so quickly, considering there’s no October chill yet (it was 77 degrees at first pitch Tuesday). Heck, Game 1 wasn’t even played in October. But here we are.
From the brink, can the Yankees win Wednesday night and push the Red Sox close to the abyss, too? After Game 1, they sure said all the right things, noting that they had done some of the right things during the season.
Now they must do them again, just to survive another day.
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