Yankees shockingly snub valued lefty for bench piece on playoff roster vs. Red Sox

For most teams, releasing playoff rosters is a formality. You know the guys. They were just here! Playing on Sunday! Pending a last-second terrifying injury — remember the Yankees revealing Scott Effross' Tommy John? — there isn't much to be gleaned here.

Leave it to the 2025 Yankees to actually make a few surprising calls, though.

The official roster for the Wild Card showdown against the Boston Red Sox dropped on Tuesday afternoon, and while Luis Gil won't be participating (as suspected), neither will Brent Headrick, who traveled to the Bronx and wasn't chosen.

Ryan Yarbrough, who hasn't pitched since a brutal outing in Minnesota on Sept. 16, was also left on the cutting room floor after being an invaluable piece of the rotation earlier in the summer. Paul Blackburn, of all people, won the final mop-up bullpen spot, as the Yankees chose to carry only 12 pitchers into the shortened best-of-three. After his excellent work in Baltimore last weekend, we suspected the race for the final roster spot had begun to tighten.

But little did we know that ... there was one more roster spot up for grabs! Midseason trade acquisition Austin Slater out, third catcher JC Escarra in.

Yankees snub Ryan Yarbrough and carry JC Escarra as a third catcher on playoff roster vs. the Boston Red Sox

This means our fears of the Yankees turning to Slater against Garrett Crochet, despite just three hits in 25 at-bats as a Yankee, were unfounded. He received a few chances to be a lefty masher, and never made an impact in the uniform.

Instead, the Yankees will give themselves some added flexibility with Escarra, in case Ben Rice replaces Paul Goldschmidt, Austin Wells is replaced by another offensive upgrade, and they have to toss someone behind the dish while keeping the slugging Rice at first base. The Red Sox, who also considered carrying three catchers, decided against it.

Yarbrough seemed likely to become a Yankees folk hero this year before the process got derailed by an injury. Now, the Yankees can only hope Blackburn and his 5.28 ERA in pinstripes (1.50 in his last 12 innings) can take the torch — or, better yet, they should hope they don't have to use a mop-up guy at all and the starters handle business. Yeah. That'd be better.