Yankees and Red Sox playoffs: The AL East in shambles

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The Yankees are down 1-2 to the Cleveland Indians. The only bright spot is the hope that the baby bombers will learn their lessons better than the Red Sox have.

The Yankees and Red Sox both won on Sunday to force Game 4’s of the ALDS. Eerily, both teams’ situations are somewhat similar.

Let’s start with the Yanks. So often a team’s flaws are magnified during the postseason, their Achilles heal exposed as the race reaches its climax. But the Yankees seem to be suffering more of an ironic fate.

For instance, Joe Girardi spent the 2017 season aggressively and adroitly attacking questionable calls. One of the subtle difference makers this season was overturned calls.

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

Yet, on Friday, as all the world has seen and written an article about, Girardi quailed at the worst possible time.

If for some odd reason this is the first Yankees recap you have read, Girardi chose not to challenge a key HBP call in the sixth inning that the whole world could see was wrong.

This Ali-quality phantom hit by pitch helped to knock out the Yankees as it opened the door for a grand slam.

While the stakes were not as high, it was akin to watching Grady Little leave Pedro in when his instincts must have been screaming to take him out.

Joe’s contract is up this year, so this major league gaffe could not have come at a worse time for him. Or the team. When even Girardi’s biggest supporters, such as this humble commentator, take to the keyboard to criticize him, even Joe knows he might be done for.

Catch-22

But the biggest share of blame has to go to Ronald Torreyes. And again, the cause is unexpected. Torreyes is a team, and fan, favorite because he plays with heart and hustle. He has overproduced all year and provided more than just adequate support as a role player.

Without Torreyes, the Yankees could not have won 91 games. But with him, and perhaps because of him, they could not win Game 2 of the ALDS.

The Yankees extra innings futility had its best chance of ending in the 11th when Todd Frazier led off by getting to second. Little Toe replaced him on the bag. But he tried to do too much—to take too big of a lead—and was promptly picked off.

That is inexcusable.

And so, because of early game errors and late-game mistakes sandwiched around Girardi’s blunder, the Yankees lost in extra innings, losing a game they once led by five. Once again, that is inexcusable.

We can’t forget how bad the starting pitching has been, as well. The bombers might have a split if one of their starters had thrown like a frontline pitcher.

All of it adds up to the Yankees perhaps coming home to stay. And the Red Sox are getting it even worse.

The Fall of the House of Farrell

Boston has been beaten and bullied out of Houston while suffering twin 8-2 defeats (prior to Sunday’s win). At least the Yankees are in a fight; the Red Sox are taking an old fashioned prison yard beat-down.

They are suffering more because their problems have been both expected, and not. Manager John Farrell, for instance, has seemingly made his own managing mistakes during his tenure and is even more criticized than Girardi, normally; Joe is clearly wearing that crown today, though.

But while Girardi could very well survive until at least next season, I get the sense from Boston that Farrell will not be back after another early ALDS exit, having been swept last year by Cleveland. It is a feeling the Yankees might soon share.

And that’s in part because Farrell was supposed to be Boston’s pitching guru but his best four starters from the last two postseasons have pitched poorly. The Revered Dan Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe recapped it this way:

Let’s pause for a moment here and talk about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse who have started Games 1 and 2 of the Division Series for Boston in 2016 and 2017. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death, but we know Boston’s Horsebleep Horsemen to be Porcello, Price, Sale and Pomeranz. Against Cleveland last year and Houston this year, they have put the Sox behind in every game. They are 0-4 with a 13.81 ERA as playoff starters in the two seasons. In 14⅔ innings, they have surrendered 22 runs on 26 hits and five walks. They have yielded nine home runs. It is astoundingly bad work by good pitchers.

The Sweet Bird of Youth

And it was Farrell’s decision to play Eduardo Nunez and that was managing out of desperation. When the managers first big decision immediately crumples to the ground, confidence, plans and schemes tend to be negatively affected.

One predictable aspect to Boston’s beatdown, however, is the dearth of home runs. Not by the Astros, mind you. Right now, Red Sox pitching is Houston’s batting practice warm-up for the next, and first real, Astros series.

And each soul-crushing, series-winning moon shot is a reminder that the Sox have hit none in the first two games. Boston did not hit home runs during the regular season and now that bad habit is killing them in the post.

But had you told Boston fans that Farrell might be an impediment and the team would not hit for power, they would not have been surprised. So many other issues, however, would have been shocking.

(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images) /

A La Recherche du Temps Perdu

Sharing the Yankees ironic angst, the baseball gods have decided to make David Price Boston’s best postseason pitcher after years of October ineffectiveness. That just magnifies Farrell’s decision not to stretch him back out into a starter.

So, the Sox’s best starter right now is being used to bail the team out of jams once the damage has been done instead of leading them to a victory. This is all at a time when the Sox starting pitching has been there biggest problem.

Baseball is unpredictable but the fact that this backfired will be just one more nail in Farrell’s coffin.

And, just like the Yankees, the Sox have committed uncharacteristic errors. Mookie Betts mishandling his hand-off was as surprising to the Red Sox as it was damaging.

Not that the Yankees pitching and play in the field has been the best; far from it. Between them, they are showing the AL East is unready to play with serious title contenders: Too many mistakes, not enough pitching.

The Sun Also Rises

There is a bright side in this dark time for the Yankees, though; I am not sure that is true for the Sox. And that’s the real difference in what we are seeing.

Boston is fielding a win-now team. They’ve traded all of their prospects and spent their free-agent cash.

But some young Sox are looking less like superstars and more like competent regulars (Bradley, Jr., Bogaerts). And some of those prized free agents are already breaking down (Hanley Ramirez, Price).

They might still have the resources to get J.D. Martinez this off-season, but that will not solve their postseason pitching problems. Or make Dustin Pedroia’s knees not feel every bit of his soon-to-be 35 years.

Unless the Dodgers want to buy all of the Sox’s free agents as they did a few years ago, enabling the Red Sox to rebuild faster than they deserved to, this is the team Boston will put out on the field for the next few years. That can’t be a comforting thought on Yawkey Way.

New York, meanwhile, is fielding a win-soon team. They still have young upgrades coming—Torres, Andujar, Florial, Acevedo—with enough left over to trade with. Also, the team will be shedding huge salaries (A-Rod, Sabathia, Holliday) and will add important free agents this off-season.

Whether or not their young stars will elevate or return to earth remains to be seen. Either way, Boston has probably completed its run as the best team in the AL East. And they know it.

The Crucible

There is one last difference, in timing, that might lead to a greater one, in outcome. Boston was soundly beaten last year. Fans and team management were hoping it would serve as a challenge to the Sox’s players, making them more focused this year.

We’ve seen it before. The ’96 Yankees were created by the ’95 Mariners; Boston’s 2004 championship team was formed by the 2003 Yankees.