The Yankees have no shot
The Yankees beat the Guardians to advance to the ALCS. But that's where their postseason will end, as the Astros own the Yankees in just about every way.
Photo credit: Maddie Meyer, Getty Images
The Yankees are still alive.
The 101-win Mets bowed out after three games. So did the 101-win Braves, though it took them four. The 111-win Dodgers, the winningest team in franchise history, succumbed to their pitching problems in a first-round exit. But the Yankees are still alive.
YANKEES GET THE LAST LAUGH AND SEND CLEVELAND PACKING🗽 pic.twitter.com/Nyomb2FAdB
— ESPN (@espn) October 18, 2022
This doesn’t mean these 99-win Yankees are better than those National League behemoths, but it does mean that they’re still in the postseason. As one of four teams left standing, the Yankees are still technically able to win their 28th World Series, their first since 2009, breaking their longest ringless streak since the mid-90s.
But that’s not going to happen. The Astros, Phillies, and Padres all won convincingly, with the Phillies and Padres winning two series to get to this point. But the Yankees merely survived, and considering their next opponent, they have no shot of even making it to the World Series.
The Yankees barely made it this far
It’s somewhat miraculous that they even made it to this point. After looking like one of the greatest teams of all time, the Yankees went on an ugly losing streak in August and only stayed atop the division standings thanks to the collective ineptitude of the American League to field more than two good teams. And now the bill has come.
Been doing it all year. #ALLRISE pic.twitter.com/hxiEW3jjae
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) October 18, 2022
Aaron Judge looks like he broke his back carrying the offense through September. Giancarlo Stanton looks even worse, with only one hit in nineteen plate appearances. No one is hitting except for Harrison Bader and Anthony Rizzo, and that doesn’t exactly look like a murderer’s row. At least the pitching has been solid.
But it’s hard to complement a pitching staff that held down an offense that hit literally half as many home runs as the Yankees did this season. The Guardians also had a payroll seven times smaller than that of their opponents, and they still took the Bronx Bombers to a fifth game. Of course they are supposed to win, and it’s not exactly encouraging that a rainout gave the Yankees pitchers the rest they needed to make it happen.
So the Yankees made it. Congrats. But this is as far as they’ll go.
This is the Astros’ series to lose
The Houston Astros have a lot going for them in their upcoming series. For one, they eliminated the Yankees from the postseason in 2015, 2017, and 2019. For another, they’re the only team to have swept their division series, dispatching the upstart Mariners in three games and giving themselves plenty of rest.
Ultimately though, the Astros are just the best team in baseball. And they own the Yankees.
ITS TIME FOR SOME FATHER-SON BONDING
SEE YOU TOMORROW @yankees pic.twitter.com/yiknvlPLOG
— 2022 Champs (@AstrosOptimism2) October 18, 2022
It helps that their own MVP candidate Yordan Álvarez is looking like postseason David Ortiz and that their pitching staff gave up only two combined runs to the Mariners in their final two games. The Astros also went 5-2 against the Yankees this season, all before the All-Star break and before the Yankees tumbled. Just about everything the Yankees do the Astros do better, especially if Judge and Stanton aren’t hitting it out of the park. Oh, and the Astros have home-field advantage.
So, yeah, they’re done. They might push the Astros to five or six games, but even if they rekindle the defense and power hitting that made them so great in April and May, the Yankees still don’t have enough to beat the best team in baseball. If they want their 28th championship, they’ll have to wait until 2023, because it’s not happening this year.
