What Went Wrong: 22 Days Early

This is going to be a long offseason.

We Yankees fans love to play the game of "What if" when we come up short. We didn't really play it too much last year because we were in the Fall Classic. That was an emotional October for me. When Juan Soto hit that home run in Cleveland last year, I was bouncing all over the walls. It had been 15 years since we even played in the World Series, and here we were, playing in the Fall Classic. Even better for this baseball fan, it was Yankees/Dodgers. We didn't win, but we got there. That's the thing.

This season threw us some curveballs, the biggest one being that Gerrit Cole being out for the season before it started. Luis Gil was another loss, but that was for about half of the year, but Clarke Schmidt? Yeah, out. Giancarlo Stanton was also out for a bit; the cost of carrying the load during that entire postseason. Even so, the Yankees had a strong start to the season and were in control of the American League East.

Until we weren't.

A midsummer skid saw the Yankees fall out of first place, and we could not get out of that hole. We did show some sparks in August and September, including the final two weeks, where we actually had a shot at taking the division. In the end, it was a first place tie, which would have been good... if it was before 2022 and we had actually won more games over the Jays. Yankees faced the Red Sox in the Wild Card Series, and took them out. Even though the Blue Jays were a problem for us, I figured we'd win. We were coming off a World Series appearance, we had most of the same people, and I thought we still had that same magic.

Then Games One and Two happened.

Outscored by a combined 23-8 in those games in Canada. Even worse, Max Fried started Game Two. We looked to him as our safety net after that disastrous Game One, but Fried totally fell off. Even Carlos Rodon (our other safety net) looked very human, but Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. saved us from being swept. I figured the momentum was there. But Game Four saw the offense fall asleep, other than a Ryan McMahon solo HR, and an RBI in the 9th when it was too little, too late.

Not starting on time was definitely what went wrong, but again, we ask the question: "What if?" What if we actually won more of those games against not only the Jays, but the Red Sox as well? We definitely wouldn't have had to scoreboard watch on Games 160-162, that's for sure. What if we had a solid bullpen? What if we played Stanton more than we did? In the end, we still did better than we should have done given the circumstances.

So there it is, the Toronto Blue Jays become the first to advance to MLB's Final Four, known as the League Championship Series. With Toronto's advancement, it means that Game One will be in Canada against either the Seattle Mariners or the Detroit Tigers. As for the Yankees, our season ended 22 days earlier than last season ended. Our last season ended on the day before Halloween. Even so, given the circumstances, I still say we did well enough, and 2026 will see big things for the Yankees, I'm certain of it.

Well, that, and there's also one more thing I'm certain of: we still own Boston.

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