Yankees Finish With Best Record in AL, Now Must Sit For Five Days

It wasn’t exactly a scintillating finish for the Yankees, and now we have to hope that it was merely a case of them not caring about these games over the weekend. In any event, they finish the season 94-68 which is 12 games better than 2023, and rather incredibly, that was enough to not only win the AL East, but to finish with the best record in the league. Lets get to it.

It’s a good thing the Yankees were able to salvage the last game against the Orioles on Thursday to clinch the AL East, because if not for that victory, game 162 on a rainy, miserable Sunday against Pittsburgh would have been pretty damn nerve wracking.

While the Yankees were losing the first two games to the Pirates, once again proving that their homefield in the Bronx is not much of an advantage this season, the Orioles won their first two in Minnesota against the carcass that is the Twins. Man, be glad you aren’t a Twins fan after the collapse they just completed.

The Orioles then completed the sweep Sunday, and had they not yanked ace Corbin Burnes after five innings Thursday night, that 10-1 Yankees victory may not have happened. Instead, with Burnes saving bullets for his wild-card start, the Yankees were able to attack Baltimore’s suspect bullpen and thankfully got the one win they needed during an otherwise sloppy, mostly lousy six-game homestand.

Just imagine if the Orioles had completed the sweep in New York. The Yankees lead might have been down to one game starting Sunday and if the Yankees lost, the teams would have been tied atop the division and Baltimore would have won it because it owned an 8-5 head-to-head tiebreaker. Alas, it didn’t matter as the Yankees did end up salvaging the finale against Pittsburgh.

Even losing four of six on the homestand, the Yankees finished No. 1 in the AL because the Guardians lost at home both Friday and Saturday to an Astros team that could not improve its seeding and had nothing to play for. That enabled the Yankees to back into a clinching of the best record in the AL and homefield throughout the AL playoffs, though again, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing as they finished an uninspiring 44-37 at Yankee Stadium.

Look, thanks to their great West Coast trip, the Yankees put themselves in cruise control mode for the final week of the season. Of course, cruise control is fine as long as you don’t fall asleep at the wheel and the Yankees were certainly swerving from lane to lane because there sure wasn’t much to like about how they played against Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

Now they have five days of inactivity and rest before they open the postseason Saturday night. People seem to think professional athletes can just flip a switch, but I’ve covered professional athletes for my entire career and I can tell you that’s not the case.

However, the Yankees are going to need to do that because they sputtered to the finish line, and they’re going to be facing a young, hungry team in the first round, whether it’s the Orioles or Royals.

Sept. 27: Pirates 4, Yankees 2

The Lead: The Hangover Game

As soon as the lineup was announced, you knew the Yankees were punting this one, which was fine. Yes, it would have been nice to sew up homefield advantage through the AL bracket because with Cleveland losing to Houston, a win in this game would have accomplished that. But Boone decided it was better to rest Aaron Judge, Austin Wells, Giancarlo Stanton and Anthony Rizzo and predictably, the offense was mostly helpless, managing just six hits.

For Judge, it was just his third day off all season, and Boone felt that giving him a night off was more important than allowing him to continue his quest to reach 60 home runs. For once, I agreed with the manager.

“I’ve been wanting to give him a day off, so I finally get him one here,” Boone said.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Carlos Rodon made his career-high 32nd start and it wasn’t great. He managed to get through five scoreless innings despite all kinds of traffic, and then his night ended abruptly in the sixth when he gave up back-to-back homers to Nick Gonzales and Bryan Reynolds. Still, Rodon finished the regular season 16-9 with a 3.96 ERA and 1.223 WHIP, and even though he gave up 31 home runs, tied for the second-most in MLB, he was so much better in 2024 than his disastrous 2023 debut half season with the Yankees.

➤ “He finished off what was an outstanding regular season for me,” Boone said. “I’m just proud of him - all he has been through to get to this point and go out there and make 32 starts for us. I loved the kind of innings he logged for us. Sixteen wins, just an outstanding season. I feel like he is ready to go for the postseason. It’s a credit to him, taking the bull by the horn and getting after it in every kind of way starting in the winter. His connections with our pitching group, with our training staff, with our strength and conditioning people, he was just on board and locked in really from the jump. … He has continued that in such a good way. That’s him being motivated.”

➤ The home runs off Rodon tied the game at 2-2 after the Yankees had just taken a 2-0 lead in the fifth, the only inning in which they did anything against young Pirates fireballer Jared Jones. Throwing 100 mph, he dominated the Yankees for four innings, striking out seven and allowing no runs on three hits and a walk. But then Jose Trevino singled, Oswaldo Cabrera doubled, and after a Gleyber Torres groundout and an intentional walk to Juan Soto, Pirates manager Derek Shelton brought in lefty Joey Wentz to face Jazz Chisholm and that didn’t work as Jazz hit a two-run single. The Yankees eventually loaded the bases again, but to the surprise of no one, Alex Verdugo and Anthony Volpe failed, and that proved to be costly later on.

➤ That’s because the Yankees never scored again, and Pittsburgh won the game in the eighth as Tommy Kahnle, who has had a very good season, gave up a two-run homer to Reynolds following a single by Billy Cook. All that was left Aroldis Chapman to come on in the ninth and dominate three hitters for a 1-2-3 save on eight friggin’ pitches, something he rarely ever did with the Yankees.

Sept. 28: Pirates 9, Yankees 4

The Lead: That Was a Helluva Hangover

Yeah, two days after all that champagne and beer and whatever else was consumed, the Yankees still looked drunk in this one, particularly Luis Gil who was flat out awful.

The Pirates came into the game with the fifth-fewest homers as a team in MLB, so what did they do one night after hitting three on Friday? Only five more in this one. What a joke. Gil was horrible and it’s really hard to feel any confidence that he’s going to be trustworthy if he ends up being their No. 3 starter. In his last two starts he allowed 10 earned runs.

“Couple pitches that kind of wrecked his outing a little bit,” Boone said. A couple?

Game notes and observations:

➤ Pirates phenom Paul Skenes pitched only two innings before the team decided to shut him down for the rest of the season in a meaningless game which meant his final ERA was an incredible 1.96 and his WHIP was 0.947 in 23 starts. While he was out there, he embarrassed the Yankees. He retired all six men and struck out three including Soto and Judge in the first, the start of a truly horrific day for Judge. My God, if Skenes stays healthy, he could become an all-timer.

➤ Gil gave up a solo homer to Yasmani Grandal in the second, a solo homer to Gonzales in the fourth, a two-run shot to Cook, and one last two-run shot to Jared Triolo in the sixth that made it 6-1 and pretty much ended all hopes of the Yankees.

➤ After Tim Hill and Clayton Beeter calmed things down, Will Warren finished off his miserable season with yet another laughable performance. He gave up three runs in the ninth to turn a 6-4 game into a 9-4 blowout, the big blow a two-run homer by Nick Yorke. Warren’s final ERA was 10.32 in six games, and in Triple-A it wasn’t all that much better at 5.91. If he’s supposed to be one of the top pitching prospects in the system, that’s a problem.

➤ Holy shit, what a day for Judge. He struck out in all five at bats, the last the most galling. Bases loaded in the ninth and Chapman was called on and he blew Judge away, then for the final out, shoving it up the Yankees ace for his second save in two nights. Man, I thought I couldn’t hate that guy any more than I did when he left New York in 2022.

➤ Chisholm hit a solo homer in the fifth, a run scored on an error in the sixth, and Chisholm had an RBI double in the eighth. As for the other run, Soto singled one home in the seventh, but then made yet another stupid baserunning play and got himself thrown out at second, so Judge didn’t get a chance to take a shot as the tying run. Of course, given the day Judge was having, it probably didn’t matter, but again, more baserunning stupidity by the worst baserunning team in MLB. And when I say that, there are actually metrics that prove it.

➤ And as the final kick in the balls for this game, Rizzo suffered a fractured two fingers when he was hit on the hand and that probably means he’s done. Rizzo had actually been starting to hit a little better, and his defense is way better than anyone else the Yankees could play at first base. “We’ll see as the days unfold here what we have,” Boone said. “I don’t want to jump to anything. We’ll see how he responds in the next several days before we kick this thing off in a week.”

Sept. 29: Yankees 6, Pirates 4

The Lead: Salvaging the Finale

On the heels of Gil’s terrible last start, Clarke Schmidt wasn’t much better, and this really leaves some big questions in the Yankees rotation behind Gerrit Cole and Rodon. Schmidt lasted just four innings and this was perhaps his worst start of the year as he gave up four runs on three hits and four walks.

I have no doubt that if Nestor Cortes was healthy, he’d be the No. 3 starter based on how he pitched over the last month. Now it’s between Schmidt and Gil who will both need to be much better than they were against the Pirates.

Game notes and observations:

➤ Admittedly, the weather was terrible and Schmidt struggled with it. “We were very surprised we were trying to grind that one out,” Schmidt said. “We have playoffs coming up, and it’s a high injury risk. Even guys running to first base were falling over. But happy to make it through healthy, and everyone else made it through healthy, and we came away with the win. Obviously, brutal conditions, but I didn’t have great execution regardless, so I didn’t put myself in a good spot.”

➤ Still, he was handed a 2-0 lead in the first when Torres led off with a double and Trent Grisham hit a two-run homer off Bailey Falter, and that was gone in the third when he gave up three runs. He walked a man, hit another, gave up an infield single on a play first baseman Ben Rice couldn’t make. Josh Palacios hit a two-run double and Triolo put the Pirates ahead with a sacrifice fly.

➤ After the Yankees went back on top 4-3 in the bottom of the third with Grisham singling in one and Stanton pushing one across on a double play grounder, Schmidt walked the leadoff man in the fifth and Boone pulled him in favor of Mark Leiter. And guess what? Of course, Leiter sucked as he walked a man and gave up a tying RBI double to Joey Bart.

➤ From there, the bullpen locked it down. Ian Hamilton, Tim Mayza, Luke Weaver and Clay Holmes each pitched a scoreless inning, Holmes earning his 30th save, and Weaver wound up getting the win because in the eighth, Verdugo came through with a winning two-run single.

➤ Judge and Soto both sat out, so they finished possibly their only season together with a combined 99 home runs and 253 RBI. Judge led all of MLB in homers, RBI, OPS (1.159), on-base (.458), slugging (.701), walks (133). His Triple Crown chase ended just short as his .322 average trailed Bobby Witt Jr. (.332) and Vlad Guerrero Jr. (.323). He should be the unanimous MVP, though some smart alecks will vote for Witt who, yes, had a tremendous year, but he wasn’t Judge.

And now the Yankees take the next five days off as they wait to learn their opponent for Game 1 of the AL divisional series which starts on Saturday at Yankee Stadium, either against the Orioles or the Royals.

Thanks to TV scheduling, there will be three off days built into the series if it happens to go all five games. Just stupid shit from MLB, but again, this is all about TV trying to maximize what it believes to be the best windows. Here’s the schedule, with all the games on TBS, and no start times announced yet. That’s right, no more games on YES, Amazon, or Apple.

• Game 1: Sat. Oct. 5, Yankee Stadium.

• Game 2: Mon, Oct. 7, Yankee Stadium.

• Game 3: Wed., Oct. 9, on the road.

• Game 4: Thurs. Oct. 10, on the road (if necessary).

• Game 5: Sat. Oct. 12, Yankee Stadium (if necessary).