NEW YORK — Aaron Decide’s eyes darted from the middle of the Yankees’ clubhouse Saturday afternoon, occupying practically the identical swath of carpet the place he’d rested 11 months prior. Then, his crew had been one of many final ones standing, swept into winter after a lopsided American League Championship Collection loss to the Astros. Decide’s quick response had been to declare the season “a failure.”
Now, Decide has the identical thought as he and his teammates put together to go dwelling even earlier. The Yankees had been eradicated from playoff rivalry Sunday, now shifting their outlook towards the 2024 season with a 7-1 loss to the D-backs at a soggy and windswept Yankee Stadium. This marks the Yanks’ first time lacking the playoffs since 2016.
“There’s so much that went incorrect,” Decide stated. “What it comes right down to is, we simply didn’t come out right here and do our job. With the kind of lineup we’ve, the pitching rotation, we’ve simply acquired to point out up collectively. … Yearly I’ve been in New York, I’ve been within the postseason. It’s going to be just a little completely different this offseason. It’s simply going to present us extra time to work and prepare for the following one.”
Throughout Decide’s first full season in 2017, he helped to energy the membership into the postseason, highlighting an inflow of “Child Bombers” whose arrival appeared to promote a vivid future. However the Yankees had been despatched dwelling by the Astros within the ALCS that October, then fell quick of their subsequent 5 makes an attempt at a title beneath supervisor Aaron Boone, who took over in 2018.
“If I’m not standing right here speaking to you guys after a championship, it’s a failure,” Decide stated. “After the entire work you’ve put within the offseason, coaching, preparation, popping out right here each day, rain or shine, to play a recreation — it’s about bringing a championship again. That’s why we play. That’s why I’m right here.
“That’s why I got here again to New York with this group of fellows, to construct one thing and get New York again to the place it’s alleged to be. If you don’t present up and produce and get kicked out like this within the common season, that’s an enormous failure proper there. We’ve acquired plenty of work to do, plenty of inner talks, plenty of stuff we’ve acquired to get found out.”
With the Yanks’ report at 78-77, their remaining seven contests will see them attempt to preserve alive a streak of profitable information that has prolonged for 30 consecutive seasons (since 1993).
“We all know we’re ok to be the place we need to be. We simply haven’t finished it,” DJ LeMahieu stated. “I’ve been on some [nearly-] 100-loss groups earlier in my profession the place issues didn’t go nice, however we had been just a little short-handed. That’s why it’s irritating, as a result of we all know we’ve acquired the fellows. We simply couldn’t collectively put it collectively.”
Boone stated that the Yankees anticipated beginning pitching to be a energy, and whereas Gerrit Cole is on monitor for the AL Cy Younger Award, accidents ravaged a lot of the remainder of their envisioned rotation.
The tone of the season appeared to shift when Decide slammed into the right-field wall at Dodger Stadium on June 3, with the reigning AL MVP sustaining a torn ligament in his proper huge toe that may trigger him to overlook practically two months.
“I keep in mind some extent early within the 12 months, possibly within the first two months, the place we had been 10 [games] over [.500],” Boone stated. “It was like, ‘We’ve simply acquired to hold on till we get our pitching again intact.’ It by no means actually acquired going; we misplaced Judgie, and another guys went down, so it made it difficult. Early on, we had been staying afloat, however not having the beginning pitching we anticipated was most likely the beginning of issues.”
Veterans like LeMahieu, Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton struggled to choose up the slack, lowlighted by a dismal 1-5 journey to Colorado and Anaheim out of the All-Star break. Decide’s July 28 return supplied hope, however a nine-game August skid appeared to safe the Yankees’ destiny.
“It’s fairly disappointing,” stated Carlos Rodón, who began Sunday and yielded 5 runs (three earned) over 6 1/3 innings. “We considered ourselves as a championship membership, and this 12 months we underperformed massively. It simply has not been good.”
There have been nights when Boone stated he has discovered himself watching a ceiling, mulling the couldas, wouldas and shouldas of one more season by which the franchise’s said objective of a World Collection championship will go unfulfilled.
They absorbed a handful of gut-wrenching defeats, certain. However extra ceaselessly, these Yankees merely seemed odd in a 12 months when a lot extra was anticipated.
“What you’re employed arduous in direction of all 12 months spherical — wintertime by Spring Coaching by the season — is a chance to play in October and compete for a championship,” Boone stated. “The truth of that not being in play, it sucks.”