Party Postponed: Yankees Waste First Chance to Clinch AL East

No popping champagne corks Tuesday night as the Yankees blew their first chance to clinch the AL East, losing 5-3 to the Orioles thanks in part to yet another Gleyber Torres mistake. Meanwhile, by winning, the Orioles clinched a playoff berth, plus they secured a season series victory over the Yankees as they have now won seven of the first 11. Not a good night. Lets get to it.

Sept. 24: Orioles 5, Yankees 3

Gleyber Torres has without question been one of the Yankees best hitters for more than a month now. Ever since he was moved back into the leadoff spot in mid-August he’s been outstanding with a .320 average, a .392 on-base and an .835 OPS.

And Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium he was at it again as he delivered three hits on a night when pretty much no one else did much of anything at the plate for the Yankees.

But as always with Torres, you can’t talk about the good without the bad, and in the seventh inning, he absolutely killed the Yankees with yet another boneheaded baserunning blunder that cost them a chance to win the game. It’s just maddening how major league players can be so stupid on the base paths, and there is no one in MLB who is dumber than Torres. That was the sixth time he has been thrown out trying to score, most of any player in MLB.

With the Yankees down 4-1, Anthony Rizzo was at second with two outs after a ground-rule double, and he moved to third on an infield single by the otherwise useless Alex Verdugo. Torres then ripped a line drive ground-rule double to right to make it 4-2, and now Juan Soto came up with the tying runs in scoring position.

Soto hasn’t been going great in September, but he came through in this spot with a line single to right. Verdugo scored and Torres was held up by third base coach Luis Rojas because the ball was hit hard and right at Anthony Santander. We can argue whether Rojas made the right decision here; I would not have minded sending Torres home because then you force the Orioles to make a great play and as it turned out, Santander’s throw was up the first-base line and Torres probably would have been safe with the tying run.

But knowing Torres isn’t exactly fleet of foot, he held him, but that was fine because here’s what should have been next: Aaron Judge batting with men on first and third, two outs and the Yankees down by a run, and the Yankees should have been willing to let that scenario play out.

Ah, but there’s another layer to consider here. Soto made his own stupid decision trying to take second which started all the chaos. Once Rojas held Torres, Soto should not have tried to advance to second when Santander threw home. Why? First of all, it was a risk, but more importantly, had he made it, and Torres not been a dipshit and just stayed at third, now first base was open and the Orioles were just going to walk Aaron Judge and deal with Austin Wells who has been terrible for two weeks. By going to second, Soto took the bat out of Judge’s hands even before Torres made the final out.

That became a moot point once Torres did what Torres does way too often: Play stupid baseball. When catcher Adley Rutschman threw to second, Torres was heading back to third but for some inexplicable reason, seeing the ball go to second, he tried to score. Halfway there he knew he was dead meat so he wound up in a rundown and eventually was tagged out to kill the inning with the Yankees still down 4-3.

“His initial thought was Juan might be out at second so he’s trying to protect him,” Aaron Boone said. “But it’s got to be a bluff or a sellout and go. That’s the tying run right there. Once Rutschman squares (to throw to second), are you going to sell out to go or are you going to bluff him to try to pull off?. He got caught in between. He does make some mistakes on the bases. He’s cleaned it up from last year and year before where he’s getting himself in trouble.”

Protect Soto? That was such a bullshit quote, and when Torres told reporters the same thing, clearly the two of them had gotten together to concoct that story in the hopes that the reporters, and all of us, would buy it. Why would he be protecting Soto? Torres was the tying run, he needed to be looking out for himself.

And here again is why I just can’t buy the Yankees as a championship team. I just can’t because this team is so fundamentally flawed and it does too many stupid things that will kill them in October.

Even Judge, who refuses to take issues head on when he speaks in cliches to the media, essentially admitted Torres’ gaffe when he said, “When it comes down to it, stuff like that can’t happen. Can’t keep shooting ourselves in the foot with mistakes like that on the basepaths.”

Here are my observations:

➤ Clarke Schmidt pitched well as he allowed three runs on just four hits and a walk with seven strikeouts in 5.1 innings. In the second, Jordan Westburg singled but then Ryan O’Hearn hit a weak bloop down the right-field line that landed fair and went for a ground rule double. Westburg then scored on a ground out. In the fourth, he walked Santander, threw a wild pitch, and O’Hearn singled to make it 2-0. And then in the sixth Santander hit a liner off the pole in right for a home run that made it 3-1 which ended Schmidt’s night. There was definitely some bad luck in there.

➤ Tim Mayza came in and he gave up a solo homer to Ramon Urias in the seventh, and after all the craziness in the bottom of the seventh, Ian Hamilton served up a long solo homer to Colton Cowser that sucked out whatever life was still in the stadium after the Torres play. What a turn of events all that was. From there, Hamilton and Tommy Kahnle finished it off clean, but the Yankees did nothing.

➤ Judge hit his 56th homer in the fourth for the Yankees first and only run against Orioles starter Dean Kremer, but that was one of only seven hits on the night for the Yankees.

➤ Wells was 0-for-4 as his recent collapse continues; he’s now batting .108 in his last 11 games; Giancarlo Stanton struck out four times and in September he’s hitting .186 with an OPS of .697; Anthony Volpe was 0-for-2 and is hitting .200 in September; and Jazz Chisholm’s last six games have produced an .087 average.

➤ And then of course there’s Verdugo. Boone played him over Jasson Dominguez and why he continues to remain oblivious to how bad this guy is, I have no idea. In the fifth, Rizzo and Volpe led off with walks and what did Verdugo do? What he always does, hit a grounder to the right side which turned into a double play. Rally dead. And then as the tying run with two outs in the ninth, Verdugo flied out to end the game. Boone did use Dominguez as a pinch-hitter for Volpe in the ninth, but he also failed in that spot as he pulled a Verdugo and grounded out to second. Just a shitty night all the way around.