October 6, 2026

214 thoughts on “ALDS Game 1: Yankees (0-0) @ Rays (0-0) Saturday, October 3, 2026, 6:30 PM EDT”

  1. According to Heyman, “Baltimore was willing to move Rutschman to the Bronx for a four-player package consisting of Austin Wells, Elmer Rodriguez, outfield prospect Yostin Pena, and one of either Ryan Weathers or Will Warren.”

    Come on, you couldn’t make that fucking trade. A completely unreasonable ask.

  3. Veggie realizes how portentous this series will be. Can we call it a sweep if it goes only three games? Can Spencer get a platinum sobrereo in one of these games?

  7. Of course it’s better to have the time off. Silly argument they make every year. Also the team with the time off is generally the better team.

  30. Was it a strike?
    But yes, the best part of this inning was the fouling off of good two strike pitches by Jazz; the worst part was the NOT fouling off of close two-strike pitches by Grisham.
    It’s that fucking simple, Rowson.

    1. I solved this problem by not watching this year (until now). If they lose you can direct your complaints to me.

    2. With two strikes, the goal is to take a slower swing that stays in the zone longer and foul it off.
      Not to prove that you’re Ted f*ing Williams, especially when you’re NOT Ted f*ing Williams.

  45. Brian, I really don’t think there’s a hitter in baseball this year I’d give the Bonds treatment to. The HR leaders aren’t even at 50, and on, and on, you know. There are some good hitters, but no one I wouldn’t even try to pitch to.

    2. He’s also given up two booming doubles, though.

      But yes, in general, he’s been fine, and I doubt Rodon would have been scoreless through three.

    1. Really missing Judge, even though Judge has had his struggles in the playoffs, it’s a different lineup w/o him. Sigh.

  58. We can all fairly be pissed if they lose this game, but come on, it ain’t on Cole over Rodon. It’s one run in four innings! So it was really annoying for the announcers to be doubting the call. It’s been ONE run!

  60. I was shocked when they said Blackburn was up.
    Shocked. Cole is nowhere near done. Cole could go 110 pitches if he keeps it going.
    Could.
    Just what the hell was that?

    1. Throwing a pitch that barely touches the very upper tip of the right side of the strike zone, and then following it with a pitch that barely touches the lower tip of the left side of the strike zone is just insanity.

      The third pitch was good, too, but those first two pitches were insanity.

    1. Wells hit it hard, though. They are getting good contact off of him, but it’s all for naught, and instead, they have a chance to be fucking no-hit in a playoff game, which is less than ideal.

  68. Yankees don’t have enough offense to win a World Series. There’s Rice and Cody and Garcia. Only Rice is scary and everyone else is kind of blah.

    2. Yeah, I’d ride him here. No reason to give the Rays extra ABs against the A list relievers right now.

    4. SO frustrating. On the other hand, three isn’t a particularly high number, they haven’t earned things statistically evening out.

    1. Bringing in Weathers for his first appearance since he was hurt in a 1-0 game in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS seems like a dumb idea.

    2. You guys see Weathers playfully talking shit to Cam when Cam did some Boston shit-talking? Weathers replied to him, “Professional ragebaiter.”

    3. “You guys see Weathers playfully talking shit to Cam when Cam did some Boston shit-talking? Weathers replied to him, “Professional ragebaiter.””

      Heh. Where is that, have a link?

    1. Okay, Weathers at least definitely proved himself with this inning. I’m cool with him in any capacity going forward. I would have liked to have seen him debut in a different spot, but he looks fucking LEGIT.

    1. Can Stanton even move? Even if he could, making him play right on turf seems like a dangerous idea. Maybe in Yankee Stadium they could try it.

    1. Spencer Jones isn’t about to change that no-hit streak here.

      EDITED TO ADD: I thought he might have at least had a competitive at-bat, but I guess that was also too much to ask.

    4. He looked wretched on the last pitch, but he actually had a couple of really good swings before that, I thought.
      The guy’s pitching a no-hitter, I don’t think Spencer’s looked all that bad.
      The fact that it’s a one run game is actually pretty cool. It’s just one run. It could happen.

    1. The only thing I can think of is that they are trying to turn Weathers into a short man for the playoffs, in which case they want to keep him at one inning a game.

    2. Yeah, but he’s totally used to pitching more. Right now why run through all your pitchers?

    5. Let me put it this way:
      if they lose, it doesn’t matter who pitched.
      And it’s a one run game, all too easy to see this game going to extras.
      You want your pitchers for THIS game.
      And the day off tomorrow is just as much an argument to let Weathers pitch another inning!

    6. They want Weathers available for Game 2. If he pitched two tonight, he probably wouldn’t be available for Game 2 even with the day off. Basically, they want to make Weathers be their third short man ahead of Bednar, joining Blackburn and Headrick. I think that makes sense.

    1. Nothing beats Dominguez’s slide earlier this year, but that’s definitely up there in terms of the worst baserunning by a Yankee all season, and he does it in the 8th inning of a 1-0 playoff game.

    1. It’s just amazing in HOW dumb it was. You’re a slow runner, and, as noted, there are two outs, you’re not moving yourself into scoring position, what are you DOING?!

  94. It’s not about the 3rd out at 3rd. It’s not a strategic error.
    It’s so much simpler and more obvious than that. Forget the “principle.”
    It’s that it’s a ONE-RUN GAME, AND IT’S ALMOST OVER, AND YOU’VE JUST PUT A RUNNER IN POSITION TO SCORE, AND – MOST OBVIOUSLY – there was NO POSSIBLE WAY HE WAS EVER GOING TO BE SAFE AT THIRD.

    1. As bad as it was, I can’t front, I’m just glad they weren’t no-hit. I can live with a 1-0 loss to Drew Rasmussen. Just win the non-Rasmussen games and they’ll be fine.

  100. “And on top of that, Boone now keeps Blackburn out there, so why did he pull Weathers earlier just to extend Blackburn now?!”
    Boone is a professional. He picked up on this being a special night for bearded redheads.

  102. That was as inexplicably STUPID as anything I’ve seen in a playoff game, maybe forever. Cole not covering first was terrible, but he froze for a second. This was just SUB MORONIC.

  104. The craziest part to me was that there was NOTHING SPECIAL about that ball in the outfield. It bounced right to the guy. How is that the ball Wells thinks he’s gonna make it to third on? what POSSIBLE REASON!?

    3. Exactly. It probably never occurred to anybody besides Wells that it was a triple.

    4. In fairness, it would have been Stanton coming up for his first at-bat since April with two outs, so he probably would have been stranded, regardless.

    2. Obviously, you hate the loss, but I can live with it. Just need to Mike Scott Rasmussen. Win the games he doesn’t pitch, and using Cole now gives them three really good pitchers for the other four games.

      But yes, that Austin Wells double will live forever in Yankees infamy.

    1. With the stupid schedule Rasmussen can start game 4 and relieve game 5.

      Sure, but that’s fine, just have a lead in Game 5.

      Or have some of these hits fall in in Game 4. They had SEVEN balls hit 99 MPH or better against Rasmussen. He pitched really well at times, but they also hit him hard a lot with nothing to show for it besides Wells’ idiotic double.

  115. Katie S Teams with 1 Hit or fewer, 12+ Strikeouts and 2 or fewer Walks in a postseason game:

    2026 Yankees (ALDS Gm 1)
    2000 Mariners (ALCS Gm 4)

    1. Think about it this way. Let’s say Rodon starts and pitches well. They probably still beat the Yankees behind this Rasmussen performance, right? Heck, let’s say CAM pitched tonight. They probably still win off of that Rasmussen performance. So it’s almost good that they got their “bad” pitcher out of the way in a game they were going to lose no matter who started it for them.

    2. Could see Rasmussen in game 4 and relief game 5. Generally got to beat good pitchers to win the World Series. The team they beat in 96 had a pretty good rotation.

    3. Hopefully they DO hit Rasmussen better later in the series. They tagged him for six runs earlier this season, ya know? And they hit him hard tonight, just right at guys.

      Also, the 1996 Yankees had a better offense than this year’s Yankees, and that’s not even bringing the Judge of it all into consideration.

  117. Look, if Rasmussen is better than Schlittler and pretty much on a par with Sandy Koufax for the rest of this series, the Yankees still could win, but it would be a tough order.
    I don’t really think Rasmussen actually is better than Schlittler, let alone on a par with Sandy Koufax, though.

  119. Wells surprisingly not owning it. I assumed he WOULD, but nope, he’s saying that he was just being aggressive, and that getting to third was important because the field there “plays fast,” so he might not be able to score from second on a single.

    Wow, very unusual.

  120. WEAK! “Thought it kicked off more than it did, he made a good play on the ball. Two outs there, trying to make something happen, be aggressive with not much going on in the game. Obviously, love to safe there or standing on second base.”

    – Austin Wells

  122. I heard some weird theory about the Wells running, that makes sense to me. He didn’t stop because he knew Boone would take him out for a pinch runner. What do you think? That would be even worse.

    1. I believe him when he says he thought he saw it bounce around in the corner as he passed first (which it did to a certain extent, just not THAT much), and he just thought he’d have an easy triple.

      He was just plain ‘ol stupid.

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