AL Wild Card Game
Astros - 010 100 100 - 3 5 0 Yankees - 000 000 000 - 0 3 0
Swinging wet newspapers, the "Men Without Bats" were dominated for the third time this year by Astros lefty Dallas Keuchel on the way to 3-0 loss that ended their season in front of a sold-out and season-high Yankee Stadium crowd of 50,113 that was willing to get involved but never given a reason.
When they exercised their vocal chords it was to boo Brett Gardner after he grounded out in the eighth inning. Gardner played center field over Jacoby Ellsbury because Joe Girardi wanted Chris Young's right-handed bat in the lineup against Keuchel, and Gardner whiffed three times against Keuchel. Ellsbury was booed when he ended the eighth on a pop-up as a pinch-hitter. ...
The Yankees' late-season slide in which they appeared to be under the influence of Quaaludes – they lost six of seven to end the year – continued and sent them home after nine nondescript postseason innings.
It was the Yankees' fifth straight postseason loss. The last time the Yankees won a postseason game was Game 5 of the 2012 ALDS ...
After holding the Yankees scoreless in 16 innings during the regular season, Keuchel was just as good despite pitching on three days' rest for the first time as a pro ...
In six shutout innings, the talented lefty allowed three singles, faced two batters with runners in scoring position and walked one.
Cy Young hopeful Dallas Keuchel continued his dominance over the Yanks in three 2015 starts, as the bearded lefty stifled them over six shutout innings on three-days' rest and the Astros sent them home early with a one-and-done 3-0 victory in the AL wild-card game Tuesday night at the Stadium.
Masahiro Tanaka coughed up solo home runs to Colby Rasmus and ex-Met Carlos Gomez in his five innings, but neither the Japanese righty nor the Yankees' meek lineup were any match for Keuchel (87 pitches) and three relievers. The All-Star lefty also had tossed 16 scoreless innings in two starts against the Bombers during the regular season. ...
In the organization's first playoff game since 2012, however, the Yanks' batters looked off-balance all night and often expressed displeasure with home-plate umpire Eric Cooper's strike zone. ...
[Alex Rodriguez] came to the plate with two runners on and two outs following singles by Gregorius and Carlos Beltran in the sixth. But he lifted Keuchel's first pitch to shallow center to extend his postseason hitless string with runners in scoring position to 19 consecutive at-bats.
The Yankee Stadium crowd waited all night to get excited, but Dallas Keuchel hardly took his foot off the Yankees' offense throat.
Finally, with two outs in the sixth, the Yankees got their first — and only — rally of the night with runners on first and second and two out and Alex Rodriguez coming to the plate.
"I thought that was going to be the moment for us that was going to turn it around, but it [wasn't]," manager Joe Girardi said after the Yankees went meekly in Tuesday's wild-card game 3-0 to the Astros in The Bronx.
After a leadoff single by Didi Gregorius, a strikeout by Brett Gardner, Chris Young hit into a force out to bring up Carlos Beltran, who singled to center.
But Rodriguez swung at Keuchel's first pitch and flied harmlessly to center.
At least Joe Girardi doesn't have to change his number next year.
Not like he changed his lineup Tuesday night by benching $153 million man Jacoby Ellsbury in favor of Chris Young and putting the struggling Brett Gardner in the leadoff spot in a desperate attempt to find offense, any offense for the moribund Yankees.
Ellsbury has had his troubles, too. Nothing worked. This night was nothing to go wild about.
The Yankees are done. They were put out of their misery by the Astros at Yankee Stadium with another hitless-wonder performance, shut out 3-0 by Dallas Keuchel & Co.
After two years of finishing out of the playoffs, the Yankees could not muster a postseason victory.
Girardi could not push the right buttons to get the Yankees' offense going.
New York now belongs to the Mets the rest of the postseason.
This was surely not what they all envisioned, back at the giddy press conferences or over filet mignon at the recruiting dinners, where they doubtless dreamed of long October runs and postseason glory.Joel Sherman, Post:
Both Jacoby Ellsbury and Masahiro Tanaka signed big-bucks contracts in the winter before the 2014 season, but both were not nearly the factors they hoped to be in their first Yankee taste of the postseason, Tuesday's 3-0 wild card loss to Houston.
Ellsbury did not start and only popped up as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning. Tanaka was the Yanks' choice to start the game, but only threw five innings and 83 pitches ..
It was a rough night for two men who are supposed to be among the cornerstones of these Yankee years. And players who are making a combined $308 million should never be this kind of October afterthought ...
Pick your word: Feeble. Meek. Lifeless.And:
This is how the Yankees sleep-walked into the offseason, sent off by home boos over the final few innings. They lost 3-0 to the Astros, compounding a miserable finish to the season that dimmed the joy of a first playoff berth in three years.
The nine innings also accentuated most worries about a team trying to squeeze the last vestiges of skill out of older players while rebuilding on the fly. ...
Ellsbury didn't even start this wild-card game as Joe Girardi opted instead for Brett Gardner, who whiffed in all three of his at-bats against Keuchel. Ellsbury has five years at nearly $111 million left on his contract, and the Yankees probably can only expect his fragility to rise and his athleticism to diminish, leaving what exactly? ...
In 21 of their final 61 games, the Yankees scored two or fewer runs. And they scored none in 22 innings against Keuchel in 2015. ...
The aura in the Stadium was like when Josh Beckett pitched on three days' rest in World Series Game 6 in 2003 – an anticipatory crowd was lulled into slow silence with the realization the Yankees were not going to hit their nemesis.
Or anybody. The Yanks never got a runner even to third base against Keuchel, Tony Sipp, Will Harris and Luke Gregerson.
Their season ended without much resistance ...
Daily News:
Some Yankees fans have embraced Alex Rodriguez — even after his season-long PED suspension — but this New Jersey grandmother wasn't one of them.
Helen Fowler, 85, of Cranford, N.J., died on Sept. 29, according to The Star-Ledger, and in her obituary was referred to as "... a lifelong Yankees fan, with the exception of Alex Rodriguez."
4 comments:
FenFan, game thread: "Slappy with .156 BA with RISP, worst in MLB postseason history, minimum 40 AB"
Also: A-Rod is now 0 for his last 19 in postseason with RISP.
The Astros swept the Red Sox in Houston July 21-23.
The Astros finished 1 game ahead of the Angels for the 2nd wildcard.
If not for that series sweep against us, we may have watched the Yankees beat the Angels last night in the wildcard game.
So on July 23, 2015 the Red Sox helped eliminate the Yankees from the playoffs.
(I realize my logic is terribly flawed here on many levels, but it's still fun...)
If that obit is real, it is absolutely hilarious. Hey Allan, maybe when your time comes, you want to do the same, substituting hewhocannotbenamed. But then there's Zimmer, and... Nah, the whole column will be the Sox you hated.
ESPN:
The New York Yankees still have not led in a postseason game since Derek Jeter sprawled in the dirt three years ago, screaming in pain from a broken ankle.
It's a string of playoff losses that reached five straight Tuesday night to match a franchise record. The team had a streak of nine games without a win from 1921-23, but that stretch included a tie in the 1922 World Series. ...
The 2015 Yankees might have overachieved just by reaching the postseason.
A seven-game lead in the AL East in late July caused the Yankees to think they could be a great team. That was forgotten during a slide that ended with an 87-75 record, a six-game deficit behind Toronto and a second-place finish.
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