Yankees' Austin Wells somehow made Drew Rasmussen's near-no-hitter even worse in massive ALDS buzzkill

We'd already accepted the no-hitter. Drew Rasmussen is to the Yankees as Cam Schlittler is to the Red Sox. Drew Rasmussen is like if Cam Schlittler had never logged into Twitter. Drew Rasmussen is like if Cam Schlittler's favorite book was "Wallpaper Samples".

But somehow, some way, with two outs in the top of the eighth, Austin Wells found a way to both spoil Rasmussen's shot at history and make the Yankees' loss several degrees more insufferable.

There's something to be said for extra effort and giving 110%, but there's nothing to be said for Wells' foolishness in this one. After lining a double just fair down the right-field line - again, an absolute miracle - Wells either watched the ball kick around in the corner for a second or didn't watch anything at all and was simply on a vision quest all his own.

Third base coach Luis Rojas, known for foolishness all his own, holds no responsibility here. He tried to stop Wells all the way, and Wells either didn't listen or didn't look. He wanted to be a hero. Instead, he goes in the books as the latest participant in the Yankees' annual October Humiliation Ritual.

For this story, I tried to find a more fitting image of Wells running. I scrolled and scrolled. Wells runs so rarely that, when he does so, he's never photographed. A completely inexplicable moment in history.

And he was having such a spectacular postseason, too. Laser-focused challenges. What ... was this?

Yankees won't join history of playoff no-hitters, but there's always the potential of a Drew Rasmussen Game 4 start

Don Larsen's Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series. Roy Halladay, Game 1 against the Cincinnati Reds in 2010. The Astros' combined no-hitter (disgusting, but fine) that swung the momentum of the 2022 World Series.

Rasmussen really looked unjinxable in this one. There were a few hard-hit balls along the way, but they zipped directly to fielders' gloves magnetically. Wells' shot down the right field line was the only one that even flirted with creating havoc, and as soon as we all collectively exhaled that the no-no was done, we were immediately greeted by an all-new variety of agitation.

The Yankees will not have to try to be the first team in MLB history to win a postseason series in which they were no-hit, but they certainly have a different form of embarrassment to overcome in Game 2 in front of the type of partisan crowd Cam Schlittler wasn't expecting.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow