From Bryan Hoch:
After a baker’s dozen of showdowns throughout the regular season, the Yankees needed no refresher on the Rays’ approach ahead of this American League Division Series. Multiple times, they stressed how crucial it’d be to “take care of the ball” and “play clean.”
Their worst fears were realized in nightmarish fashion on Monday night, and now their hopes hang in the balance. The Yankees committed four errors — including three in the first inning — in a 5-2 Game 2 defeat at Tropicana Field, sending them home needing three straight victories to extend their season.
“It’s a tough loss. We beat ourselves today, in a lot of ways,” second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “These are some of the best defenders I’ve ever played with. For me, it hurts us a little bit more than you think.”
In all best-of-five postseason series, teams with a 2-0 lead have gone on to win the series 83 of 93 times (89%). Teams that have won the first two games at home in Division Series with the current 2-2-1 format have gone on to win the series 33 of 36 times (92%).
Ryan McMahon was one of the best defenders in baseball when the Yankees acquired him last season, and he came here, and he….remained one of the best defenders in baseball…until this season. This season, he has suddenly become a negative asset on defense, which is crippling, since his defense was the only reason the guy was any good over the years.
Again, this is a dude who was, for YEARS, a REALLY good defender. And he continued as a good defender as a Yankee last season, and then showed up and just lost his ability to standout on defense this season. It’s fucking baffling, and it is fucking infuriating.
I don’t even think the error he made to lead off the game was even THAT bad of an error (as the turf obviously speeds the ball up and gives it weird topspin), but it stands out as an example of, “Holy shit, why is this guy so fucking bad on defense now?”
That’s always been the thing that gets you, when guys just lose it inexplicably. Like when CC just suddenly sucked for a few years. Or when Chapman lost the ability to close…and then Holmes lost the ability to close….and then Devin Williams lost the ability to close…and then Luke Weaver lost the ability to close…fuck, that is a weird ass pattern.
In any event, they embarrassed the shit out of themselves. Cam also sucked ass in the fifth inning, but more importantly, they embarrassed themselves a game after Austin Wells made one of the worst baserunning decisions you’ll ever see.
So they likely fucked their season over, but, well, obviously it ain’t over until it’s over, so we shall see.
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“We beat ourselves”…where have we heard that before? Seemingly every year.
So was last night more or less embarassing than 2024 WS Game 5.
(Error by judge, error by Volpe, Coke not covering first base). I still go with that one because they weren’t going to win last night anyway. That WS game was already won had they not screwed up so badly.
Game 5 was far worse, yeah.
And really, only the Jazz error was really all THAT bad.
this game was pathetic on every level but was boone’s refusal to go to the deep bench they brought stubbornness or resignation?
they had matchups for trent and mcmahon, i just don’t get it. did he think it was spring training because they were playing in florida?
Kay was talking about that, but Seymour has a 100 point reverse split for the season and 50 points for his career.
haven’t listened to kay but
ramos had actually been hitting and nothing about the lineup was working at all.
i suppose the reality is that if we expecting caballero or ramos to save this season there are real issues
The Yankees have a lot of mediocre hitters Jazz, Volpe, MacMahon, Cabby, and Grisham. I think Spence might’ve been solved 156/174/311 last 14 days. He needs to take another step to succeed. Lombard shows promise and may be very good but he OPSed 699 this season. Garcia looked great but is in a huge slump, 105/150/105 last 14 days, I don’t know what to make of him. And Heliot is strictly platoon
This is it. They may go on some hot streaks (like to start the season) but overall, we are depending on a lot of weak hitters to come through, even with Judge in the lineup. Maybe that happens against a weak team like Boston over 2 games, but the Rays are the best team in the AL and 5 hits and 2 runs over 2 games isn’t going to get you a lot of victories. The line up holes have been getting more and more over the years and with Judge typically disappearing in the playoffs, it’s not a crap shoot that they haven’t been successful.
They have the starting pitching this year but this team and their expensive players are getting old. Cole will be 36 next year, Judge 35, Rodon 34, and Fried 33. And Stanton will be 37… which may not be a big deal because he doesn’t contribute much anyway, but he is still making $15M the next 2 years and most years he has been providing the playoff production you EXPECTED from Judge, so he made up for most, if not all, of Judge’s postseason struggles. And if the lockout/strike/CBA negotiations cause next season to be missed, that is another year older and further from it’s prime these expensive players will get.
fundamentally, in all senses, the Yankees suck. it’s much more satisfying to root for the Dodgers
The 1996 Yankees made 3 errors in 15 postseason games. This team made three errors in one inning of a postseason game.
From the last thread:
Some people have remarked that because Cam was under so much stress so often and the Yankees had a long top of the 5th inning, Cam should not have come out for the bottom of the fifth. Francesa mentioned that someone texted him during the game about that.
At around the 5:15 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmX7-bHUQi0
“2026 Yankees vs 96 Atlanta Braves. Who wins?”
That 96 team would crush this team, the way the annihilated and embarrassed their prior playoff opponents and the way it appeared they were about to manhandle the 96 Yankees after game 2.
Against that rotation? This lineup would get no-hit four consecutive times. Smoltz, Maddux, Glavine, Avery. Three hall-of-famers and one guy who would have if he’d stayed healthy. There’s not a chance these Yankees would touch any of them. Even with a healthy Judge, they could just walk him and Rice, and move along.
And though Atlanta might have trouble with the 2026 Yankees’ starters too, that would be neutralized by the Yankees’ vaunted defense.
“it’s much more satisfying to root for the Dodgers”
Honestly, it looks like a lot of fun to root for the Rays!
It would only be out of spite against the Rays for beating the Yankees that I would root for the White Sox. But as someone else wisely said, I think here, it would be really great to have a Rays-Brewers World Series, just to undermine the owners’ bullshit about needing a salary cap.
The Guardians have a lower payroll than the Rays no?
Yes, Cleveland’s payroll is lower than Tampa Bay’s. But I’ll be very surprised if Cleveland beats Chicago.
Either way, it’s interesting that of the four remaining AL teams, three have the lowest payrolls and the fourth has the lowest baseball IQ.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2026/09/27/mlb-teams-payroll-2026-highest-lowest/91968872007/
Throw in the Brewers and 4 of the 8 remaining teams wouldn’t even reach the proposed salary floor.