As the Yankees found themselves stuck in the midst of their annual summer swoon, Aaron Boone insisted he wasn’t worried.
Maybe it was the fact that his team had overcome these slumps in past years, reaching the World Series as recently as last October despite a similar midseason freefall. Maybe it was the parity that surrounded the Yankees, as no American League club truly separated itself from the pack this season. Or maybe Boone just really believed in the players at his disposal, especially after the trade deadline had just yielded a few upgrades and reinforcements.
“Since I’ve been here, I feel like we have a chance to be as good as any team as we’ve had,” Boone said after the middling Marlins swept his squad to kick off the month of August, a low-point during an extended period of slop. “I really feel like that. That starts with me and helping them get it out, but we gotta do it. And again, I am very confident that we will. But it has been a long enough stretch of ups and downs, lose a few, win a few.
“We gotta do better than that.”
The Yankees did do better after that, as they entered the playoffs as one of the hottest teams in baseball after pushing the American League East race, which they ultimately lost to Toronto, to the final day of the regular season. A Wild Card Series win over the Red Sox — which required two do-or-die victories — followed.
Then came those pesky Blue Jays in the ALDS.
Tormented by Toronto all year, the Yankees saw their season end with a Game 4 loss to John Schneider’s Canadian club on Wednesday. The 5-2 defeat at Yankee Stadium left the pinstripers heartbroken after losing two laughers north of the border and delaying elimination with a win on Tuesday.
Cam Schlittler, who played hero in the Wild Card Series, did his best to force a winner-take-all Game 5 in Toronto, holding the Jays to two earned runs over 6.1 innings without his sharpest stuff on Wednesday. However, the rookie’s night ended when a grounder ricocheted off Jazz Chisholm Jr. That error, committed on a potential double play ball, came back to bite the Yankees, already down a run, as Nathan Lukes shot a two-out, two-run single the other way off Devin Williams to pad the Blue Jays’ lead.
With series star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and George Springer having already driven in a pair of runs off Schlittler, the Jays added one more for good measure in the eighth. Aaron Judge picked up an RBI single in the ninth, but it was too little, too late.
Unable to overcome their latest bout with adversity — the Bombers left the bases loaded in the eighth and totaled 10 stranded runners — the Yankees could only watch in distress as their division rivals celebrated on their home turf. It felt somewhat fitting, their season snuffed out by Toronto as the untidy play that plagued the team all summer reared its ugly head.
After all, it was the Blue Jays who knocked the Yankees out of first place back in early July, and it was their possession of the tiebreaker — Toronto’s reward for an 8-5 record in head-to-head play — that decided the East on the final day of the regular season.
With their postseason now over, the Yankees went 6-11 against the Jays overall. That includes losing 8-of-9 games at the Rogers Centre, which first became a house of horrors for the Yankees during some error-filled regular season games. Then Toronto exploded for a record-setting 23 runs there between Games 1 and 2 of the ALDS.
Now the Blue Jays, who entered the series well-rested after their division title earned them a bye, will prepare for a matchup with the Tigers or Mariners in the ALCS. Toronto is trying to win its first World Series since going back-to-back in 1992 and 1993.
The Yankees, meanwhile, came up short in their attempts to avenge last year’s World Series loss, a messy showing that had the bottom of the Dodgers’ victorious roster mocking them all offseason. Fresh off another letdown, the Yankees are left to contemplate the future, as a busy offseason awaits an organization that has failed to win a championship since 2009.
While an overhaul on the leadership side is not expected — Boone signed an extension prior to the season — time is of the essence.
Judge, who overcame past postseason struggles by hitting .500 this October — he also mashed a mesmerizing home run in Game 3 of the ALDS – only has so many prime years left, though the 33-year-old doesn’t appear to be slowing down just yet after another MVP-worthy season. Giancarlo Stanton, who hit an uncharacteristic .192 this postseason after previously dominating the playoff stage, and Gerrit Cole, who didn’t throw a pitch this year thanks to Tommy John surgery, aren’t getting any younger, either.
Both are 35, and Cole won’t be ready for the start of next season after two lingering tennis elbows delayed the beginning of Stanton’s 2025 campaign.
Clarke Schmidt will also miss time in 2026 after his own Tommy John procedure, though the Yankees’ rotation looks to be in a strong shape with Max Fried, Rodón — who both flopped in the ALDS — and the ultra-confident Schlittler leading the way. Will Warren, while bumpy at times, including Game 2, also showed encouraging signs as a rookie, while Luis Gil will have to hope that a healthy offseason and spring allow him to recapture his 2024 form.
The bullpen will be a major offseason project, as the unit routinely struggled from start to finish this season. Williams, a problem at the beginning and middle points before finding his way at the end, and Luke Weaver, prone to implosions over the last month, are both set to become free agents.
The Yankees’ lineup, the best in baseball during the regular season, could lose some key pieces, as outfielders Trent Grisham and Cody Bellinger are expected to hit the open market after huge years but poor postseasons. So is Paul Goldschmidt, an aging former MVP who is best-suited in a platoon role at this point.
Just how many of those players will be back with the Yankees after Boone said this year’s group had “a chance to be as good as any team as we’ve had?”
At first glance, the response may be “not many,” but that and other questions will be answered in the coming weeks and months.
For now, the Yankees can only stew over another season that fell short of expectations.
