Yankees eliminated from playoffs with listless loss to Blue Jays in ALDS Game 4
Next stop for the Yankees this October: the Canyon of Zeros.
Just like every postseason since their last World Series title in 2009.
In what has been an all too familiar theme in the Aaron Boone era, the Yankees came up well short of their stated yearly goal, this season coming to a crashing halt in a four-game loss to the Blue Jays in the American League Division Series.
Failing to mount anything sustained against the starter-starved Blue Jays, who threw eight relievers in a bullpen game Wednesday night, the Yankees — unable to ride the momentum from Aaron Judge’s big moment the night before — were unceremoniously ushered into the winter with a 5-2 loss in front of an agitated Stadium sellout crowd of 47,823.
“It’s tough to describe,” said Judge, who went 13-for-26 in these playoffs, including 2-for-4 in Game 4. “We didn’t do our jobs and finish our goal. We’ve got a special group in here, a lot of special players but we didn’t get the ultimate prize…that’s what you play for, you play to win. When you don’t win, it’s not a good year.”
The Yankees, who staved off elimination the night before with a 9-6 victory — highlighted by Judge’s score-tying three-run homer in the fourth inning and Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s go-ahead homer in the fifth — were held to six hits Wednesday night.
“Credit to the Blue Jays and the year they've had,” said Boone, who received a two-year contract extension last February and is all but certain to be back next season. “They beat us this series, simple as that.”
The Blue Jays took the season series from the Yankees, 9-4, which gave them the AL East title after both teams finished the regular season 94-68.
“Very disappointed,” Chisholm said. “I feel like everybody in here believed that we had such a great team and we were the team to beat, and we believed so much in each other. It’s heartbreaking.”
Chisholm, as he did in Game 3, played a significant role, but not in a positive sense.
With the Blue Jays clinging to a 2-1 lead in the seventh, Ernie Clement, whose monster postseason continued (9-for-14), singled with one out off Cam Schlittler, who not surprisingly wasn’t as dominant as last Thursday when he struck out 12 over eight scoreless innings of the Yankees’ Wild Card Series clinching victory over the Red Sox.
Andres Gimenez followed with a sharp grounder to second that Chisholm booted for an error, allowing Clement to take third. In came Devin Williams to face George Springer, a former World Series MVP who routinely hurt the Yankees while with the Astros. Williams struck him out swinging at his “airbender” changeup, but Gimenez stole second on the strikeout. That proved key when Nathan Lukes followed and stroked a 95-mph fastball to left-center for a two-run single that made it 4-1 and sucked much of the energy from the crowd.
“I didn’t think it was going to play the way it played,” Chisholm said. “Been thinking about that since the play happened, still thinking about it. Can’t get it out of my head.”
The Blue Jays tagged Camilo Doval for a run in the eighth to make it 5-1 and the Yankees’ last best chance came in the bottom half against righty Braydon Fisher, Toronto’s seventh pitcher of the night.
Giancarlo Stanton started the rally with a two-out single and Chisholm walked. Ben Rice pinch hit for Paul Goldschmidt and Blue Jays manager John Schneider countered with his righty closer, Jeff Hoffman. Rice, 2-for-5 with a homer in his career vs. Hoffman, walked to load the bases. But Austin Wells, swinging at the first pitch, flied to left, leaving the Yankees 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position with nine runners left on base to that point.
Jasson Dominguez, pinch hitting for Anthony Volpe, led off the ninth with a double to right-center. Amed Rosario flied to left, Trent Grisham hit a hot shot to first where Vlad Guerrero Jr., whose bat hurt the Yankees all series (9-for-17 with three homers), made a sliding stop and threw to first for the second out. Hoffman got ahead of Judge 0-and-2 before the reigning AL MVP lasered an RBI single off the wall in left to make it 5-2 and reinsert a bit of life into the remaining crowd, but Cody Bellinger struck out to end it.
Schlittler grinded through six innings, allowing four runs (two earned) and eight hits over 6 1/3 innings. Schlittler, who allowed a first-inning RBI single to Guerrero, struck out only two against a Blue Jays lineup that was the hardest in the majors to strike out this season.
“It’s brutal,” Volpe said of a promising season, one that saw the Yankees go an MLB-best 32-12 down the stretch, ending so quickly. “Just kind of in shock.”
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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