The 2020 New York Yankees season is over. For the 11th straight season, and for the 16th time in the last 17, it did not result in an American League Pennant. For the 11th straight season, and for the 19th time in the last 20, it did not result in a World Series win.
Am I heartbroken? No, I am not. I am enraged.
If this sounds familiar, it means you read this blog every October.
This may also sound familiar to you: To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, It is always October, but never the World Series.
Tonight, the Yankees lost Game 5 of the AL Division Series to the Tampa Bay Rays at Petco Park. If this had been because the Rays simply played better, I wouldn't have liked it, but I could have lived with it. But that was not the reason.
Gerrit Cole pitched very well, but manager Aaron Boone took him out in the 6th inning, having thrown only 94 pitches, 60 of them for strikes. And he had just gotten the 1st out of the inning, eliminating Randy Arozarena, who had been a pain in the Yankees' ass in this series. There was absolutely no reason to take him out.
Boone took him out, and replaced him with Zack Britton, who, ideally, wouldn't have come in until the 8th inning, the 7th at the earliest. You know what? Screw that: Ideally, Cole would have pitched 9 innings.
Yes, he was pitching on just 3 days' rest. But look at what actually happened tonight: He was getting the job done. He wasn't tired. He wasn't losing his control. He wasn't losing his command. He was fine. And he wasn't losing: Thanks to a home run by Aaron Judge leading off the top of the 4th, but having allowed an Austin Meadows homer in the bottom of the 5th, the score was 1-1.
But because Brian Cashman is an idiot who believes pitchers throwing 95 or more pitches in a start is a bad thing, regardless of results, he ordered Boone to limit Cole's pitches.
Cashman and his lackey Boone made things worse. Britton began the bottom of the 7th by striking Kevin Kiermaier out. But Gio Urshela made an error at 3rd base, allowing Mike Zunino to reach 1st. Britton then got Meadows to fly out. And... Boone took Britton out, and brought Aroldis Chapman in.
The closer. In the 7th inning.
Goose Gossage used to be for that. He knows Chapman isn't.
He demands an explanation for this bullshit.
So Gary Sanchez, who'd had trouble playing the position of catcher all season long, and wasn't hitting, was going to have to catch Chapman's 100-plus-mile-per-hour pitches in the bottom of the 8th. Mike Brosseau made sure Sanchez wouldn't have to catch one of Chapman's pitches, hitting it out.
The Yankees went down 1-2-3 in the 1st inning, stranded Luke Voit at 1st with 1 out in the 2nd, wasted a leadoff walk by Brett Gardner thanks to a double play in the 3rd, went down 1-2-3 after Judge's leadoff homer in the 4th, stranded Gleyber Torres at 1st with 1 out in the 5th, stranded Aaron Hicks at 2nd and Giancarlo Stanton at 1st in the 6th, went down 1-2-3 in the 7th, and stranded Judge at 1st with 2 out in the 8th.
Top of the 9th. One last chance to save the season, against Rays reliever Diego Castillo. Stanton had been pretty much the only Yankee delivering in this series, but he went back to form, taking a called 3rd strike. Voit, at least, took the bat off his shoulder, but struck out swinging. And Urshela hit a line shot to 3rd base, but Joey Wendle snared it, and the game and the season were over. Rays 2, Yankees 1.
In their 1st 6 games of the postseason, the Yankees scored 12, 10, 9, 5, 4 and 5 runs, averaging more than 7 per game. In this game, they scored 1. Aside from Judge's home run, they only got 1 man to 2nd base.
I don't care how good the opposition's pitching is: Given the Yankees' resources, and how much money they spent on players who have shown how well they can hit, this is unacceptable.
And yet, the season is a failure.
Again.
Don't blame any of the players. They didn't acquire themselves.
Don't blame the manager. He's not really the manager.
This is all the fault of Brian Cashman.
Will owner Hal Steinbrenner fire him? No, he won't.
Hal's father, George Steinbrenner, would not have accepted 11 straight years of failure. He would have made a change years ago.
But Hal is not George.
And Cashman sure as hell is not Gene Michael, or Bob Watson, or Al Rosen, or Gabe Paul.
As they said on Game of Thrones: Brace yourself, Winter is coming. And it's going to be another long, cold Winter.