The 2022 season will be named after Aaron Judge. However, the way the Yankees’ offense is turning lifeless and the slugger has an October nightmare, his record-breaking year will be overshadowed by his faltering performance.
On Saturday, the Yankees lost Game 3 of the ALCS to the Astros by a score of 5-0. This put their toes right on the edge of the abyss, pushed New York’s fun baseball season to the edge of extinction, and made it look like winter might come two months early. Their offense just couldn’t get going, and the Astros punished them for it.
During one of the best regular seasons ever, Judge carried the Yankees in both good and bad times. But he hasn’t been a weightlifter since October. Instead, he is part of a group that has been historically offensive and inept. But because of his size, he isn’t a sidekick. At Yankee Stadium, Judge is the face of it as his good regular season turns into a bad postseason.
During the season, they were usually saved by Judge magic at these times. But he has now gone 5-for-32 and struck out 14 times in the postseason. In three games against Houston, he has one single and no walks, and the Yankees are hitting. 128 with a total of four runs.
After losing Game 3 of the ALCS to Houston, New York fans booed loudly at the team and Judge to let them know how upset they were.
The Yankees have a record of 1–6 against teams whose fans chanted “We want _” before they played them.
Judge’s numbers in the playoffs have been terrible. He has only 3 RBI and 5 hits in 32 innings, which gives him an average of .156.
He has gone 1 for 12 with no home runs and 3 strikeouts against the Astros. Against Cleveland, he went 4 for 20, with 2 HR and 11 SO.
In Game 3 of the American League Championship Series, the Yankees were so desperate for an offensive spark that they moved Giancarlo Stanton to left field for the first time since 2019 so they could put Matt Carpenter in the lineup. Carpenter was 0-for-7 with seven strikeouts in the postseason before Saturday’s game.
New York’s offense is in such bad shape that Aaron Boone, the manager, doesn’t have many better options than the player who hasn’t had a hit since early August. When the Yankees had runners on first and second with no outs in the eighth inning and struggling catcher Jose Trevino at the plate, Boone could have replaced him with a pinch hitter. However, none of the bench options, including former starting shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Oswald Peraza, Kyle Higashioka, or Tim Locastro, make opposing pitchers nervous. Kiner-Falefa, who hits more for contact than Trevino, might have been able to find a hole and start a rally. But for the Yankees, it all comes down to the fact that there are too many holes in their lineup and no clear way to fix them. This is why the Yankees could be swept by the Astros on Sunday night and why it would be surprising if New York pulled off an unlikely comeback.
In the first three games of the ALCS, the Yankees have gone 12-for-94 with a slash line of.128/.212/.223, and they have struck out an incredible 41 times. Even though there was a lot of talk after Game 3 about roofs being open and the direction of the wind, the Yankees are making hurricane-force winds by whiffing so much against Houston pitchers.
Boone has tried three different lineups, but each ALCS game has been worse than the last. They had five hits in Game 1, four in Game 2, and three in Game 3. Two of those hits in Saturday’s game came with two outs and the Yankees were down 5-0. Before Carpenter’s single with two outs in the ninth inning of Game 2, the Yankees hadn’t had a hit since the top of the sixth. All through the series, New York’s offense hasn’t been able to keep up with Houston’s pitching. Now, they need a sudden spark to win four straight games and move on to the World Series.
“We need to do more if we’re going to win, obviously,” Boone said, “In baseball and small snippets, especially when you’re up against really good pitching, if you’re not really on top of it or really executing at a high level, these things can happen when you’re up against a great pitching staff. So, that’s the nature of the postseason. I keep saying we got to find a way. We do. I mean, it’s a small snippet right now and we got to find a way. Whether that’s taking advantage of mistakes, swing decisions and then picking our spots where we try and go and take away one of their strengths.”
It’s hard to say what the Yankees’ offensive strengths are right now. Even Aaron Judge, who is the favorite to win the American League MVP award, can’t be counted on right now. He is 5-for-32 in the postseason and has struck out 14 times. Judge’s individual performance during the regular season helped the Yankees win the American League East title and get off to such a good start that some people wondered if they could become the best team ever. Without Judge’s firing through the playoffs, it’s been nothing but a struggle. In this series, Stanton and Harrison Bader each have three hits. Six more Yankees each have one hit. So far, that’s all the Yankees have been able to do in their first three games.
Judge said, “You always want to be at your best, but I wouldn’t say that I go, we go.” “There are a lot of people in our club who can carry it, and I have to step up and do my job. I haven’t written a big hit yet. I missed a couple the other night, but we still have a lot of baseball left in us.”
If the Yankees’ bats weren’t so dead, there might still be “a lot of baseball left” in New York. But over the next four days, the Yankees will need to beat Lance McCullers, Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, and Cristian Javier. That doesn’t include the Houston bullpen, which shuts down games. The Astros’ pitching staff has been so good in this series that Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez haven’t had to do anything special to help them win. The offense for Houston hasn’t been great, but the offense for New York has been weak.
When asked what makes the Astros such a tough team to play, Cole said the following:
“Their ability to hit good pitches. (Saturday), we made two and a half mistakes. The changeup to (Alex) Bregman he hit for a double in the sixth was supposed to be a ball. It was just kind of a show-me pitch to get back to something else. McCormick’s leaked a little bit more over the plate than we wanted to. He still looked like he was going to put a good swing on it regardless. (Jeremy) Peña was able to move the runner from second base to third base on a slider that was outside of the strike zone.
Josh Donaldson‘s seventh strikeout of the series came at the end of Game 3. After Donaldson struck out to end the game, the crowd booed him off the field. To be fair to Donaldson, every Yankee who made an out, including Judge, was booed as he left the field. After Gleyber Torres, Carpenter, and Bader all struck out in the seventh inning, people began leaving Yankee Stadium.
There is a big difference between what a good at-bat looks like for the team that is likely going to the World Series and the team that is likely going to lose. For the Astros, a good at-bat means putting pressure on the Yankees’ pitchers and making good contact, no matter how good the pitch is. For the Yankees, a good at-bat is getting a high count before striking out, which is usually what happens.
On June 25, Javier helped the Astros throw a combined no-hitter against the Yankees. He pitched seven innings of that game. In 513 innings, he only gave up one hit, walked three times, and struck out five times.
It was the first time the Yankees were shut out in the playoffs since they lost Game 7 of the 2017 ALCS to the Astros by a score of 4-0. Since Game 5 of the 2020 ALDS, they have been held to six hits or less in each of their last 10 postseason games.
The only team to come back from being down 3-0 and win a series was the 2004 Boston Red Sox. The Yankees have no choice but to do what they did. That team had some power. From what they’ve shown so far, the Yankees can’t.
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