Yankees Sweep Orioles, But it Didn't Matter

The Yankees did what they needed to do as they swept the Orioles, but unfortunately the deplorable Blue Jays did the same thing to the equally deplorable Rays, so Toronto wins the division on the dreaded head-to-head tiebreaker. It really sucks, and now the Yankees have to deal with the also deplorable Red Sox in the best of three wildcard series. Lets get to it. 

Somewhere during the third quarter of the Bills-Saints game Sunday, I looked at my phone to check up on what was happening in Toronto and New York.

The Yankees were up 1-0 on the Orioles, so that was good. But then I scrolled down and saw that the Blue Jays scored five runs in the first inning against those ever-annoying, loathsome Rays, and that was pretty much the last time I bothered to check because there was no point in aggravating myself any further. Plus, I had a game to cover, locker room interviews to conduct, and stories to write.

If we didn’t already hate the Rays as much, or possibly more, than we hate the Jays and Red Sox, this should have clinched it, right? What a god damn disgrace of a weekend for them, laying down and getting swept in Toronto by the cumulative score of 22-7 which meant that the Yankees’ sweep of the Orioles was all for naught.

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“Kind of crazy, 162 games, and … it’s going to come down to that last day,” Aaron Boone said Saturday. “That’s baseball, Suzyn. That’s the beauty of our sport. For those of us … and fans that live and die with their teams all summer long, it should make for an exciting day.”

No, it wasn’t an exciting day thanks to the Rays shitting the bed with their no-show, rendering most of the day meaningless. There was zero drama, but the Yankees have no one to blame but themselves for not winning the division. They closed the season on an eight-game winning streak, and I certainly like the way they are playing right now. It seems like they’re peaking at the right time and that should bode well in the postseason, though you never know.

However, this surge was too little, too late because they spent more than three months in the middle of the season sucking, and that came back to bite them in the ass and cost them the division title, not to mention rest this week because they would have had a first-round bye.

Instead of kicking back and relaxing, they’ll be under enormous tension because they have to play the best-of-three wildcard series against a Red Sox team who they played so poorly against in three of the four series during the regular season, including a gruesome 2-5 record in the Bronx where they lost both series.

What’s really galling about this all is that the god damn Blue Jays won the division. That’s hard to stomach because when you look at the run differentials for the Yankees and Jays, it tells quite a sad story. I don’t really put too much stock in run differential because it can be skewed by a few great or horrible days, but in this case, it’s notable that the Yankees’ were a plus-164 and the Blue Jays were just plus-77. That’s a huge difference.

In terms of expected record based on run differential plus other Sabermetric numbers that get mixed into the recipe, when the computers churn it all together it shows that the Yankees “should” have been about nine games better in the standings than Toronto. Nine games! But they weren’t because no matter what the numbers say, you have to play the games and the Yankees simply blew too many that they should have won.

“I try not to,” Aaron Judge said of harping on the wasted games during a season which included a pair of six-game losing streaks and a mediocre 27-25 record against the AL East. “There’s nothing we can do about it now besides turn the page and get locked in on October.”

You can say that it’s the same for other teams because everyone blows games, but we all know this was a big problem for the Yankees thanks to their bullpen which, until the last week or so, was incompetent for long stretches. For the season, the Yankees lost 33 games in which they held a lead at some point. Toronto lost 26 such games.

Five of New York’s losses came when they were leading after seven innings. They were just 6-8 in extra-inning games because in so many of those, they could not get the free runner home due to a lack of clutch and/or situational hitting. And they were 23-22 in one-run games. By the way, Toronto was 10-4 in extra innings, 27-20 in one-run games, and 29-23 against the AL East. All of that conspired against the Yankees.

And though I’m not going to pin everything on Devin Williams, it’s pretty damn hard to overlook his singular contribution to New York falling short. He was supposed to be an elite closer, the guy who could lock down games the way Mariano Rivera used to, or the way Aroldis Chapman did this year for the Red Sox. His career in Milwaukee indicated that he was the right man for that role as he had a career 1.83 ERA and 1.023 WHIP in six seasons there.

But if ever a dude wasn’t ready for the bright lights of New York, it was him. He finished his first and probably only season with the Yankees sporting a 4.79 ERA and 1.123 WHIP, and that was only because he had a great September. Before that, it was much worse.

Here’s a sampling of games where, if Williams had just been average and not horrible, the Yankees could have spent this entire weekend on easy street with the division already wrapped up.

On April 25 he gave up three runs in the ninth of a 4-2 loss to the Jays. He gave up three runs in the eighth on May 5 in a 4-3 loss to the Padres. On July 2 it was two runs in the eighth in an 11-9 loss at Toronto which was part of a four-game Blue Jays sweep that was probably the biggest series of the year in hindsight, because that’s what essentially clinched the head-to-head series. And then in a three-appearance stretch from Aug. 4-8, the Yankees lost all three with Williams blowing the save in one and outright losing the other two.

As I’ve told you time and time again, every game matters. Every. Damn. Game. And it doesn’t matter that there’s 162 in baseball. Every game is important. The Yankees and Blue Jays finished with the same 94-68 record, but the Yankees simply pissed away way too many games that should have been routine victories, and now they’re faced with the terror of the wildcard round, against a hated arch rival that always seems to play its best baseball against the Yankees.

Sept. 26: Yankees 8, Orioles 4

➤ This is the dream, right? Get Judge and Giancarlo Stanton hot right now, together, going into the postseason. The Yankees went to the World Series last year with only Stanton - who was named ALCS MVP - doing anything between the two as Judge completely disappeared in October.

➤ I was a little concerned about this game because Orioles starter Trevor Rogers has been so good, and he was very good against the Yankees last weekend. But in the first inning Cody Bellinger drew a two-out walk and Stanton hit a two-run bomb.

➤ Unfortunately, after Will Warren retired the first eight men he faced, the next three went single, walk, three-run homer by Jordan Westburg. Not to worry, though, because in the bottom of the third, both Judge and Stanton ripped two-run homers for a 6-3 lead and Baltimore was hardly heard from again.

➤ Warren’s night ended when he gave up a leadoff homer to Tyler O’Neill in the sixth which cut the lead to 6-4, but the bullpen - even with the first man deployed, Mark Leiter, sucking and nearly blowing the lead - delivered four shutout innings. Leiter worked himself into a bases loaded jam, partly because of a Ben Rice error at first, so with two outs and lefty Jackson Holliday coming up, Tim Hill came through with the biggest out of the night, getting him to ground to first.

➤ Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval and David Bednar then closed it out, Doval looking great for the first time since the Yankees acquired him. Tack on runs scored on an Austin Wells single in the sixth and a Stanton bases-loaded grounder in the seventh on a play where it looked like the third baseman, Westburg, had a play for a force at home but opted against it. Thanks dude.

What they said in Friday’s clubhouse

• Stanton on watching the out-of-town scoreboard: “I mean, it is up there every fly ball that’s hit, so you’re peeking over. But the peek is always better when we’re ahead.”

• Warren: “The main thing is we win. We talked about it before tonight, we take care of business and go get these three games, then we’ve done all we can do. Everything else is out of our control.”

• Boone on bombing Rogers: “I think we probably benefited from seeing him last week a little bit. The two big boys really leaned on a couple.”

Sept. 27: Yankees 6, Orioles 1

➤ Jeez, they should all be this easy and stress-free. In the first two innings against Tomoyuki Sugano, Judge, Stanton and Ryan McMahon all hit solo homers for a 3-0 lead and the Yankees never looked back. I guess that wasn’t that surprising because Sugano has allowed an AL-high 33 long balls this season, but still, it was an impressive start on the way to a seventh straight victory which tied their season high set between Aug. 24-30.

➤ Cam Schlittler didn’t need that much help as he threw seven outstanding innings allowing no runs on two hits and a walk with nine strikeouts, easily the best of his 14 starts since joining the rotation and sending useless Marcus Stroman to the sun. Schlittler’s lowered his ERA to 2.96 and there now seems no doubt that he’ll be the No. 3 starter in the postseason.

➤ The Orioles were still hanging around in the fifth when Schlittler hit two batters, but he got out of that jam by getting Holliday to ground out, and then the Yankees put the game out of reach in the bottom half.

➤ Their three-run rally began with a McMahon single and an Anthony Volpe line out. Here, Sugano exited and lefty Grant Wolfram entered and he did not do his job as he walked lefties Grisham and Rice to load the bases. Judge stepped in and should have been up 3-0 in the count but the umpire called two inside pitches strikes so Boone lost his shit and got tossed. Too bad for him because he missed Judge ripping a two-run single up the middle, and then Bellinger’s sac fly which made it 6-0.

➤ Mop-up man Paul Blackburn covered the last two innings. The first pitch he threw in the eighth was launched for a home run by Coby Mayo, but he mowed down the last six men he faced to give the bullpen an entire day off.

➤ The only negative in this one was that Jazz Chisholm got drilled by a pitch and he had to leave the game. X-rays on his elbow were negative and he seems OK. He didn’t start Sunday, but he did pinch hit.

➤ Stanton’s homer was the 453rd of his moving him past Carl Yastrzemski and into 40th place on the all-time MLB list. This was also the 59th time Judge and Stanton have homered in the same game and the Yankees have won 52 of those.

What they said in Saturday’s clubhouse

• Judge on his at bat in the fifth: “It was definitely a big spot where we put the game out of reach. I didn’t agree with the calls, but you’ve got to stay focused. It only takes one pitch. That’s why you get three strikes. We’ve got one more game, so we’ll see what happens. A lot of hard work. We’ve got a great team, a great opportunity, so I never want to spoil those moments. I just try to do everything I can in my power to get better.”

• Schlittler pitching in a must win game: “Obviously, I knew the situation after yesterday and coming into today. There’s a little bit of pressure there, but that’s something I enjoy and something I want to pitch through.”

Sept. 28: Yankees 3, Orioles 2

➤ Rice got things started with a solo homer in the first off Orioles ace Kyle Bradish, and he finished things with a solo homer off Rico Garcia in the eighth which won the game, though it ended up not mattering thanks to what was happening in Toronto. In between, the Yankees scored in the fourth on consecutive singles by Judge, Bellinger and Stanton which tied the game at 2-2.

➤ It was only tied at that point because Luis Gil had a bad fourth inning when he gave up back-to-back homers to Westburg and Henderson. Otherwise, he went five innings and allowed just one other hit and two walks before giving way to the bullpen.

➤ And the bullpen delivered another clean performance, four scoreless innings from Cruz, Luke Weaver, Williams and Bednar to finish it off. They ended the season with 23.2 consecutive scoreless innings, so we can only hope that continues in the postseason because these games will all come down to the bullpens.

➤ By finishing with a .331 average, Judge became the 10th Yankee to win an AL batting title, but just the fifth to lead all of MLB, joining Lou Gehrig (1934), Joe DiMaggio (1939), Mickey Mantle (1956) and DJ LeMahieu (shortened 2020). He is also just the third player in history to win a batting title while also hitting 50 home runs (Mantle 1956), Jimmie Foxx (1938). Lastly, he is just the fifth players since the expansion era began in 1961 to lead MLB in average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage joining George Brett (1980), Larry Walker (1999), Barry Bonds (2002) and Miguel Cabrera (2013). Yeah, he should be the MVP.

What they said in Sunday’s clubhouse

• Boone on Judge: “The reality is, over time, you haven’t seen that many really tall people be great hitters. There’s a great advantage if you can figure it out and become a good hitter, because you have strength and leverage that smaller guys don’t. But it is a testament to how good he is at his craft.”

• Boone on playing Boston: “We can beat you in different ways, but we’ve still got to go out and do it. We’re a long way away from that. We’re confident going in. I know the guys are, and hopefully we put our best foot forward.”

• Judge on homefield advantage: “We’ve got a rowdy crowd out there, a rowdy group that’s been behind us all year long. Even in our tough times in the summer, they were still showing out in numbers, supporting us. They’re definitely going to be excited for a Yankees-Red Sox postseason matchup, that’s for sure.”

The wildcard series against Boston starts Tuesday and the entire best-of-three will be played at Yankee Stadium where New York was just 2-5 against their hated rival. Overall, Boston won nine of the 13 games against the Yankees so they’re going to be coming in loaded with confidence.

“It’s New York against Boston. It’s going to be big,” said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. “We’ve got a bunch of guys that haven’t been on this stage but they have a lot of guys that haven’t been on this stage, either. It should be fun. It’s going to be loud. Like always, if we pitch we’re going to be OK.”

Here are some of their top players to watch:

➤ SS Trevor Story: In a huge bounce back season for him, he led the Red Sox with 25 homers and 96 RBI and he also had a solid .741 OPS.

➤ 3B Alex Bregman: The Astros missed the playoffs, but Bregman didn’t, so now he gets to face a Yankees team he used to kill in Houston. He had an .822 OPS with 18 homers.

➤ OF Jarren Duran: A pain in the ass if there ever was one, he led the Red Sox with 41 doubles and 24 stolen bases and he had a .774 OPS

➤ OF Wilyer Abreu: Despite missing almost two months, he still had 22 homers, 69 RBI and a .786 OPS.

➤ RP Aroldis Chapman: All season he’s been automatic as he saved 32 of 34 opportunities and had an incredible 1.17 ERA and 0.700 WHIP. The Yankees can’t be trailing in the ninth or its likely over.

The full pitching matchups have not been announced:

• Tuesday, 6:08, ESPN: Max Fried (2.86 ERA) vs. Garrett Crochet (2.59), a battle of the teams’ aces, and it will be critical to win. Since the best-of-three wildcard round began, the team that won the opener has won the series 11 of 12 times.

• Wednesday, 6:08, ESPN: Carlos Rodon (3.09) vs. TBD, but if Rodon is on, the Yankees should have the edge. I would expect Brayan Bello, who has had success against the Yankees, to start. He last pitched Thursday in Toronto.

• Thursday, 6:08, ESPN: If the game is necessary, it’s TBD on both sides. My guess would be Cam Schlittler for the Yankees and Lucas Giolito for the Red Sox.