As I noted on Tuesday, this week’s Yankees-Red Sox series would in all likelihood determine whether or not the New York Yankees would make the post-season again this year. So far, it’s looking like the answer is no.
First, the Yankees lost 7-3 on Tuesday night after an October-like performance from Alex Rodriguez:
It is late August, the Boston Red Sox are in town, and a poor showing by the gurgling Yankees could sink their playoff hopes. This may be the closest the Yankees get to the postseason, and Alex Rodriguez is in October form.
Rodriguez went 0 for 5 with two double plays, two strikeouts and a throwing error in the Yankees’ 7-3 loss to the Red Sox on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees fell to six games behind Boston for the American League wild card, and Rodriguez, their marquee player, was booed heavily by the crowd as he fanned to end the game.
“It was an awful night,” Rodriguez said. “I pretty much screwed it up every way you can screw it up.”
The Yankees are 11-12 in August, and Rodriguez has grounded into nine double plays in the month while hitting .238. If they cannot depend on Rodriguez in the clutch, the Yankees have little hope of a monumental comeback.
Then, last night, the Yankees lost 11-3 and pretty much guaranteed that they will fail to make the post-season for the first time since 1993:
The grand slam exploded like a gunshot Wednesday night, tearing out the guts of even the most naïve believers in the 2008 Yankees.
The eighth-inning bullet by Dustin Pedroia was like the opening scene of a documentary, many years from now, capturing the thud of finality to something once so special. The question for the Yankees is what starts next: a glorious renaissance or a painful fall from grace?
In the owner’s box, Hank Steinbrenner was making his first appearance at Yankee Stadium since opening day. The team was healthy then, the young starters seemed ready, and there were few doubts that Yankee Stadium would see one more postseason, the 14th in a row for the franchise.
But as Pedroia rounded the bases, Steinbrenner hung his head. By the bottom of the inning, he was gone from his seat. There was no need to witness the final details of the Yankees’ 11-3 loss to the Boston Red Sox, the one that probably doomed their postseason chances.
The Yankees had considered it a necessity to win this series, but now they cannot. They have lost the first two games, with a matinee to come Thursday, and they fell to seven games behind the Red Sox in the American League wild-card standings.
Barring a miraculous series of events, it’s pretty much certain now that the Yankees will end their last season at The House That Ruth Built in September.
