With the Yankees on the brink of playoffs elimination, NJ Advance Media baseball writers discuss their struggles with the Blue Jays and what changes could occur in the offseason.
NEW YORK — What a what a brutal weekend it was for the Yankees in Toronto.
They were annihilated by the Blue Jays in the first two games of a best-of-five Division Series, 10-1 in Saturday’s Game 1 and then 13-7 in Sunday’s Game 2 with ace Max Fried getting bombed.
The Yankees thought their regular-season losses at Rogers Center meant nothing now. They were wrong. Those losses got the Blue Jays a first-round bye plus home-field advantage for the ALDS.
The Yankees will be home Tuesday night when they play a third do-or-die game in eight days. Two more wins would take them back to Toronto.
Do the Yankees have a realistic shot to come back?
Who’s to blame if they don’t?
Will there be big offseason changes if they don’t return to the World Series?
Will Aaron Boone return for a ninth season as manager with the Yankees still looking for a first championship since 2009?
Here are some hot takes on the Yankees from beat writers Randy Miller and Max Goodman, and baseball columnist Bob Klapisch:
KLAPISCH: I still see this series going five games. I have a hard time believing the Yankees are going to get swept by the Blue Jays, even though it’s obvious Toronto is a better and more competitive team than the Red Sox. I don’t see Game 3 Carlos Rodon losing. I don’t see Cam Schlittler losing if it gets to a Game 4. The Yankees will definitely be boosted by the home-crowd energy and the law of averages. Ultimately the series will go back to Toronto, and I do believe it’ll all come down to Fried. That’s when we’ll find out what he’s really made of.
GOODMAN: As I walked into the Yankees clubhouse after Game 2, Fried was sitting and staring into space at his locker right by the entrance. It seemed like these guys were taking this loss hard. But something that we can call back to is during their summer swoon — where they were playing really bad baseball for a couple of months earlier this year — they’ve maintained that they have the utmost confidence in this group and that confidence has really never wavered. They believe that they can get through this. That was the mindset, that we’ve been here before. Aaron Judge mentioned the 2017 Division Series where the Yankees fell down two-games-to-none in Cleveland and they were able to come back and win that series. They believe with the veteran leadership that they have and the talent in that room that they’re going to be just fine, but it’s not going to be easy.
MILLER: That Cleveland team wasn’t as good as this Blue Jays team. I was in the Blue Jays clubhouse after Game 2. Those guys are just as hungry as the Yankees. They’ve outplayed them all year, even with no real ace and a bullpen that often is terrible. One of the biggest storylines of this series for me is Vladimir Guerrero Jr., is upstaging Judge. He’s a superstar, too. Like Judge, Guerrero didn’t do much in his past postseasons. Guerrero is carrying the Blue Jays in this series. He homered in the first inning of Game 1. He hit a grand slam in Game 2. He has six hits and nine RBI already. Judge is getting his hits, but he has no homers and two RBI in five postseason games.
KLAPISCH: I agree about Judge. He won a batting title this year and is hitting .444 in the playoffs, but every time he puts the ball on the ground and doesn’t hit a home run, he’s doing the Blue Jays a favor. The Yankees are not a great offensive teamunless Judge is on one of his mega hot streaks. The Yankees will have hard time winning three in a row if Judge is hitting just singles.
GOODMAN: It’s almost like there’s something in the air at Rogers Center with the way the Yankees have played so poorly there all season. They made a bunch of errors winning there once in two regular-season series and now are 0-2 in the playoffs with two blowout losses and their ace getting lit up in one of them.
MILLER: I’ve covered a lot of playoff games in a lot of venues around the country and Rogers Centre is one of the loudest. It’s up there with the old Yankee Stadium.
KLAPISCH: That’s saying something. On the scale of one-to-insanity, the old Stadium was off the charts.
MILLER: Their crowds sure were going crazy all weekend. They had a lot to cheer about, 23 runs and eight homers in two games. They love Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who has been killing the Yankees his whole career. And on Sunday they were going crazy for a rookie pitcher who looked like Kerry Wood in his 20-strikeout game. Trey Yesavage was in college last year. His first pro game was last April in low-A ball in front of 327 fans. He was in the minors until Sept 15. His fourth big-league start was a playoff game. Then he pitches 5 1/3 no-hit innings and strikes out 11 of 18 batters, eight on splitters that dropped like a roller coaster? That was stunning to witness.
GOODMAN: I was expecting Yesavage to have a good outing based on what some of the Yankees were saying leading up to Game 2. It didn’t help them that they hadn’t faced him before. But certainly there was no way to anticipate him being this dominant. His splitter is disgusting! The Yankees swung and missed 18 times against him, including 11 whiffs on the split. It was clear early on with the quality of at-bats that the Yankees really just didn’t stand a chance.
MILLER: And how about this: If the Yankees win their home games, their reward is a trip back to Toronto for another do-or-die game with Yesavage pitching?
GOODMAN: Yes, the Yankees probably are going to have to beat that kid in Game 5, but that’s getting too far ahead of ourselves here. They have two really challenging games to win at Yankee Stadium before they can even up the series.
KLAPISCH: It’s obvious that theYankees didn’t have much video on Yesavage. Their hitters went up to the plate blind. The Yankees have historically struggled in their initial encounters with new pitchers, especially one as talented as this kid. He throws really hard. He throws straight over the top, throws downhill with a splitter that has a dramatic late drop. That combination made it almost impossible for the Yankees to make an adjustment, as Boone noted during the game in a TV interview with Ken Rosenthal. Boone said, “We’re having a hard time picking up the ball.” That was obvious.
MILLER: The Blue Jays didn’t have that problem handling Fried, who usually is among the toughest lefties in the game to hit.
KLAPISCH: Fried’s collapse to me was much more impactful than the fact the Yankees couldn’t touch Yesavage. I did not see that coming. It was such a dramatic turnaround from Fried pitching against Boston last week. I’m wondering if he was tipping again. Ernie Clements’ second-inning home run was off his front foot, and yet he just popped that curveball over the left-field wall. He’s not a home run hitter. I was wondering if Clement knew a curveball was coming. There was something about it just struck me as odd, although the other side of the argument is that Fried came into the season with a 5.10 career ERA in 20 postseason games. He had some real stinkers with the Braves, including getting knocked by the Padres in two innings in an elimination game last year. So to fall apart in Game 2 of a Division Series after the Yankees lost Game 1 by nine runs shook the organization. You need your ace to be rock solid in a game like this. Fried really let them down.
MILLER: This is four out of five bad postseason starts for Fried since he pitched six scoreless in the Braves’ World Series-clinching game in 2021. He had a great regular season winning 19 games and he’s a class act. But his start Sunday killed their shot to win. And now the Yankees are down and almost out. I’m already wondering how we judge this Yankees’ season if they don’t come back and win this series. Is this an epic failure? There’s no shame in losing to the Blue Jays. That’s not an embarrassment, but I’ve been convinced all year the Yankees are the best team in the AL. I still thought that during their almost two months of underachieving. Maybe I was wrong about this team.
GOODMAN: The Yankees didn’t make major changes after they missed the playoffs in 2023, so I wouldn’t expect them to fire Aaron Boone or Brian Cashman after a season like this. Even if they lose this series, there are a lot of positives from this year, as much as it’s obviously a failure if they don’t win the World Series, or at the very least get back there. Their roster improved over the summer at the trade deadline with a lot of young players taking steps forward. There are reasons to believe the Yankees will be in position to have another strong season next year. What doomed this team if the Blue Jays win the series? It’s the Blue Jays taking advantage of their home-field advantage the way they did playing the Yankees over the summer in Toronto. It’s also related to the Yankees losing their season series to the Blue Jays and Red Sox. Not winning games in their division and losing ground in the standings, it was too much for them to come back and win the AL East when they got hot late. This could have been a very different series if the Yankees won just one more regular-season game. They would have lined up their pitching like Toronto did coming out of a first-round bye with home-field advantage in this series.
KLAPISCH: I agree there are some legitimate high points about the season and reasons to look forward to the future. There’s talent coming, but the real focus will be on Boone, especially if the Yankees get swept. That would be an embarrassment. I doubt there will be a managerial change over the winter, but the clock would start for him next season. If the Yankees are struggling by Memorial Day, I could see pressure increasing on Hal Steinbrenner to make a move. Boone’s legacy has been as a fine regular-season manager, but on his watch the Yankees have been unable to take down the other heavyweights in October.
MILLER: I would think of this season as a big failure because I’ve the Yankees all season as the best team in a flawed American League. I think the Yankees are have more talent and a deeper roster than all of the other AL playoff teams … Seattle Detroit, even Toronto. I like the Yankees’ starting pitching a lot better than Toronto’s even with the emergence of Yesavage. I like the Yankees’ bullpen a lot better. The Yankees scored more runs and hit more homers than not just the Blue Jays, but every team in the majors. This Yankees team is a more complete than last year’s with Juan Soto and a healthy Gerrit Cole. The lineup is deeper. They have more basestealers. The bench is better. The rotation is better. They should be a World Series team again. If they don’t get there, this is a failed season.
KLAPISCH: If the Yankees don’t win this year, it’s going to be one more season for Judge’s ticking clock without a championship. That has to be going through his mind. He’s not going to play forever. It’s been almost a decade now without a ring. I’m sure that’s bothering him quite a bit.
MILLER: Judge will be 34 next April. He’s running out of prime seasons.
GOODMAN: When I think of this championship window that’s been open for Judge, Cole and Giancarlo Stanton together, this would have been a prime opportunity to capitalize on big years from a lot of players. Even with Cole missing the whole season. I agree that the path to the World Series does seem lighter than it’s been in recent years, but it’s always going to be a failure if you don’t win with the big payroll and talent that the Yankees have. And it’s especially pertinent with that context of Judge’s career, for sure.
MILLER: I know the season isn’t over and this is looking ahead, but it will be interesting to see what kind of changes would be made if the Yankees don’t come back and win this series. If they have the best roster in the league and don’t even make the final four, it’s someone’s fault. The Yankees blew up their roster last season after losing to the Dodgers in the World Series. What would happen this time? They’ll have a lot of big decisions to make on their own free agents.
KLAPISCH: Cody Bellinger is not coming back. I do not see it happening at all. I think the Spencer Jones era will be starting in 2026.
MILLER: Bellinger had a very good first season with the Yankees. He hit for average and power. He’s an excellent outfielder and a great team guy happily playing all three outfield spots and some first base, too. But he has an opt out in his contract, he’s going to use it and he’ll be coveted. Trent Grisham is coming off a 34-homer, career year heading into free agency, too. Jones is a big-time prospect who looks like a left-handed version of Judge with his size, power and athletic ability, but I doubt the Yankees go into spring training thinking their outfield will be Judge in right, Jones in center and Jasson Dominguez in left. Jones has no big-league experience. Keeping Bellinger or Grisham for one more year would be ideal, but they’ll get a lot more term at good money. Besides the outfield, there probably will be an overhaul in the bullpen. Devin Williams and Luke Weaver will be free agents. Will they keep or non-tender Mark Leiter Jr.?
KLAPISCH: Williams isn’t coming back either. That’s a certainty.
MILLER: I agree. No chance.But I do think the Yankees will have interest in re-signing Weaver even though he’s bombed in the postseason. For the most part, he’s been good to great for two seasons. Ben Rice probably is the starter at first base next year, but would they consider bringing back Paul Goldschmidt for one more year if they can get him cheap to play against left-handers? Would he take a big pay cut to be a part-time player? He’s 38. Will he retire? As always, it’ll be a busy offseason. But the Yankees aren’t done yet. As much as I now can envision the Blue Jays winning the series in three or four, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Yankees win two home games and then go back to Toronto and prevail in Game 5. They still can win this series. If they don’t, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a manager change or a blockbuster winter trade in addition to a lot of free agent comings and goings.
Stories by Randy Miller
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Category: General Sports
