The Yankees’ playoff dreams ended with a loss that no one had ever thought of. In the ALCS, Houston got rid of the Yankees for the third time in six years. This time, it was most decisive as they swept the Yankees 4-0 with a 6-5 victory in Game 4 on Sunday. New York lost two games in a row before the home crowd at Yankee Stadium against all expectations and analysis.
The team will not be in the World Series for the 13th year in a row. They have been unable to add one more to 27 rings since 2002 though they remain the best team in the American League. Meanwhile, their arch rivals Boston added two championships while Kansas City got one World Series and two AL pennants. The Astros beat them for the third time in the last six years.
“What it comes down to is they just played better than us,” Yankees slugger Aaron Judge said, “Played better defense. Came up with big hits. And came away with the series.”
This year, the Yankees and the Astros played each other 11 times and 99 innings. Ten of those games were decided in three runs or less but the Astros won nine games. Of 99 innings, the Yankees got the lead only in five. This included three in ALCS Game 4, the Yankees were ahead. But on Sunday, the Astros made a great comeback to sweep the ALCS series. They proved to be better than the Yankees. Let’s find out how?
#1. Astros have better player development, signing
Houston is better at finding and developing players, such as Jeremy Pena, who could easily replace Carlos Correa at shortstop and hit a three-run homer in the third inning of Game 4 to wipe out an early Yankee lead. The Yankees were waiting on Oswald Peraza and Anthony Volpe and this dissuaded them from signing Correa or any of the other free-agent shortstops.
Instead, they made a trade that got worse as the season went on, with Isiah Kiner-Falefa losing confidence in his defense and Donaldson’s offense falling to a new low.
The Astros are better at signing players from other countries. Yankee-killer Cristian Javier, Framber Valdez, Luis Garcia, and Jose Urquidi are all here thanks to their effective player scouting and recruitment.
#2. The Astros planned their postseason but the Yankees didn’t
The Astros are better at planning games, adapting to those plans, and coming back up after getting hit in the playoffs. It was their sixth ALCS in a row. They are going to the World Series to play the Phillies for the fourth time in that time. Their players were largely injury free, physically and mentally prepared, and ready to contribute 100%.
On the other hand, the Yankees hitting department was plagued with injuries and without their two potent hitters Andrew Benintendi and DJ LeMahieu. Though Harrison Bader arrived in time and Anthony Rizzo did as well, others from Steinbrenner’s payroll, Cashman’s trading, and Boone’s roster failed.
The bullpen weakened due to several absents remained New York’s Achilles’ heel and threatened to wreck the playoffs from the very beginning. On Sunday, Nestor Cortes was taken out of the game with a groin injury after two-plus innings and the bullpen failed to deliver.
Manager Aaron Boone admitted:
“We have a lot of the right ingredients in there. There were a few really impactful people that weren’t able to play in this postseason that would have potentially been a real difference.”
For a long time, this has been a pretty good squad. But it was unprepared and degraded to face the well-prepared Astros in the ALCS.
#3. The Astros focus on restricting Yankees hitters
The Astros became invincible because the Yankees’ famed hitting lineup turned lifeless. A lot of credit for this goes to their planning. Their way of doing things has changed over the past five years and now focus on “not allowing the other team to score.” It’s hard to win an 18-inning game against a team that can pull a starter who can go five innings without giving up a run and put him in the bullpen.
During the regular season, the combined WAR of Astros pitchers was the highest of any staff, and their ERA was the lowest in the American League. The Astros seem to have too many reliable starting pitchers for October. But for the Yankees, filling innings with reliable arms turned out to be a stressful patchwork of bad decisions.
#4. Yankees’ flaws were written large
What went wrong for the Yankees this October has been going wrong for a few years now. They have become a team with old players, a one-dimensional offense, and too many strikeouts. When they played the best teams in the American League, the Yankees showed the same problems that have plagued the team since Boone took over.
The team had taken a number of steps to fix these problems, including changes to make the defense faster, the batting order more balanced, and the players more confident in the trenches. For a few happy months, it seemed like the questions had been answered.
Last year, after his team lost the Wild Card Game to Boston, Boone talked to his team. He said true things that were easy to get wrong. As he told reporters later, there were two parts to his message. He thanked everyone for their hard work. And he begged them to see that what they were doing was not enough.
The Yankees did better in 2022. The team didn’t win 99 games by accident. Cashman remade the defense. The Yankees are one of the best teams at keeping runs from getting in because they have great pitchers and have improved their fielding. But the magic started to fade before the All-Star break.
The Astros did not get upset after Judge’s great play. The next day, Justin Verlander had a gem. The next day, Cristian Javier led his team to a no-hitter, which was only the eighth no-hitter against the Yankees in franchise history. The Yankees were on track to win 120 games before that series, but then they went 47-43 for the rest of the season.
Due to the nature of the sport, it is hard to have a season with 120 wins. As the team went back to play after the All-Star break, injuries started to put it down. Stanton hurt his calf and then his Achilles. Carpenter hurt his foot on a foul ball. Rizzo’s back puffed up. LeMahieu cracked his foot. The bullpen had a seemingly endless list of problems. These mistakes made it possible for Houston to take the lead back and also sweep the ALCS.
What do you think? Want to add any other reason that impact the Yankees’ performance? Leave your comment below.
