Schadenfreude 124 (A Continuing Series)

Rob Parker, ESPNNewYork:

[I]t's all set up for the Yankees to take the next step toward another shot at a World Series title. They just have to play.

George A. King III, Post:

The eyes were red and moist. ... Heads hung so low chins were almost on the dark clubhouse carpet in a room so quiet you could hear the mice burp.

As they moved toward the Yankee Stadium exit for the last time the sting of defeat had them shuffling as if they wore ankle weights.

The Yankees looked and talked like losers after the Tigers ushered them into the offseason last night ...

The Yankees missed a strong chance to score in the fourth against Doug Fister when they had the bases loaded and one out. But Russell Martin popped up and Brett Gardner fouled out.

Rodriguez took the air out of the seventh-inning rally when he whiffed with the bases loaded and one out. ...

The Yankees' final chance to force extra innings or win the game came in the ninth ... But Granderson flied to left. Cano, who homered in the fifth off Fister, swung at the first pitch and flied to center. That left it up to Rodriguez and he punched out on a 1-2 pitch that turned out the lights on 2011. ...

"This is devastating," Rodriguez said. "I have a hard time getting 2004 out of my mouth, but this is devastating."

Mark Feinsand, Daily News:

Nova walked to the mound with the same poise and swagger as always, but it didn't take long for the Tigers to put a dent in that confidence.

Don Kelly, starting his second game of the series, launched an 0-1 pitch from Nova into the right-field seats. Delmon Young drilled the next pitch into the left-field stands, putting Nova in a 2-0 hole after only one out and seven pitches.

Mike Lupica, Daily News:

So now it is five times in the last 10 years that the Yankees cannot make it out of the first round and one other year when they did not make the playoffs at all. And another year when they blew a 3-0 lead to the Boston Red Sox. This isn't the way October is supposed to go at Yankee Stadium. Only now the Yankees go home, again.

Bryan Hoch, MLB.com:

Sabathia [in the first relief appearance of his career] served up a run to put the Tigers up by three, as Austin Jackson stroked a leadoff double and Victor Martinez responded to an intentional walk issued to Miguel Cabrera with a clean RBI single to center.

John Harper, Daily News:

The worst part of all for the Yankees, not just Thursday night but in looking to the future, was how overmatched Alex Rodriguez looked at the plate in his final two at-bats.

Overmatched or inside his own head the way he used to be every October. Or maybe both.

Either way it is awfully ominous, considering that at 36, A-Rod has six years remaining [and $146,000,000] on a contract that is looking more and more like the worst kind of albatross for the Yankees. ...

[T]here was Rodriguez, striking out swinging with the bases loaded in the seventh inning, when even a single likely would have tied the game, and then striking out swinging to end the game.

Jim Leyland: "I would be lying if I said it didn't give me a little extra satisfaction to do it here in the fifth game."

Joel Sherman, Post:

There were many goats. ...

"I have a lot to prove and I am looking forward to the challenge," Rodriguez said in a champagne-free clubhouse. "I am coming back with a vengeance."

He left with the stink of failure. ...

Mike Vaccaro, Post:

Off the bat, it had a chance, didn't it? The men on the Yankees' bench jumped to their feet, climbed the dugout steps, because they thought it did. ... Fifty thousand witnesses thought it did: For much of the game they'd sat in muffled silence, but not now.

Now, there was hope. Now there was a chance. Now there was a baseball climbing toward right field off the bat of Derek Jeter, one on and two out in the bottom of the eighth inning, the Yankees down 3-2, down to their final four outs, begging for a hero, desperate for a savior. ...

The roar died ... as Don Kelly settled under the ball ...

The Yankees expired a few minutes later. ...

Alex Rodriguez, who would make the 27th out of an elimination game for the second year in a row, hit an appalling .111. Mark Teixeira? A buck sixty-seven. Russell Martin: .176. Nick Swisher? A microscopic .211. Jeter's .250 felt like something Ty Cobb would be delighted with compared to the surrounding anemia.

Worse, they seemed tight at the absolute worst moment possible. ...

The richest team in baseball history, the most talented in the game, and you could almost hear the players' knees knocking over the din of the crowd. ...

It's always up to the losers to do the hard arithmetic of failure. The Yankees will have a long winter to figure all of that out.