Aaron Judge Has to Be Better if Yankees want to Make a Comeback | Pinstripe Post

Aaron Judge Has to Be Better if Yankees want to Make a Comeback | Pinstripe Post

I just think that the next three days, if the three four days and three games or one day and me and you doing this again later in the week is a referendum on the captain of the team like he needs this to be the moment. Hello and welcome to the Pinstripe Post. My name is Ryan Samson. I’m the host and producer of the show. That’s the star of the show, Joel Sherman. Today is Monday, October 6th. Joel is back in New York after a busy travel trip to Toronto where the New York Yankees got absolutely spanked in Toronto. Two nothing down in the series in the American League Division series. They’re coming home in a must-win situation here in the Bronx. Uh Joel, it’s looking bleak right now. Yankees fans are very, very upset. Um but I got to get your perspective here. What is your takeaway right now? The Yankees down 200 in the series. Well, I’m curious. Uh what are Yankee fans upset about? I think they’re mostly upset about the fact that one, game one, Aaron Judge striking out with the bases loaded in probably the worst swing I think I’ve seen him since 2017. And then the other thing they’re upset about is Max Free just absolutely crap in the bed yesterday in a chance for them to try and win a game and even the series and which been a house of horrors for him in Toronto. Um, I think those are the two big things. I mean, everything else is kind of played out way Toronto would want it and you would expect from Toronto to do it. their their lineup doesn’t strike out and your key guys just are not hitting in clutch moments and you’re not getting enough slug from your big hitters. Am I wrong? No, I think you’re right. It’s almost feels like like what do you do? Like uh Freda’s been is going to finish top five in the AL Sai Young. He’s been the ace. He has pitched terribly in Toronto. Uh if he pitched even halfass in Toronto, he might win the Sai Young this year. You know, it would have improved his numbers so much. uh it was a bad time for him to be there again and yet they need to get him to game five where he would get the ball again so and take their shots at it. Uh, and it’s interesting judges hitting this postseason, but he would be better off being 1 for13, but the one was a grand slam in uh, game two because what’s missing as has been missing from his resume for his entire time as a great Yankee uh, possibly a three-time MVP by the time uh, the voting is done is announced this year is gigantic moments at this time of year. I went and looked at it. Um Ryan, uh I don’t know if people are um uh familiar with the baseball reference statistic win probability added. Uh it it literally could take each at bat and show you did it get you closer to a win or a loss at what percentage. And his five biggest win percentage added moments in the postseason, four have common losses. Uh the one that came in the a win was in the fourth inning. Most of these are early innings and one of them was a first inning homer off Jack Flareity in a game he would later drop a fly ball in center field and trigger the beginning of the end of the Yankees last year in game five of the World Series. That’s just been who he is uh in the postseason. He is missing this from his resume. uh you know, if he even just takes ball four the other day and kind of begins to string that lineup along, you know, I think Aaron Boon uses a different level of relief pitcher. Uh from there moving forward and at least it’s a game. Yeah. Uh there’s real questions. I don’t think it ends up being what was the final 10-1 or whatever the final score was in game one. Uh and that feels like it mushroomed into game two. That was their biggest at bat. And you know, judges two RBI’s so far this postseason are a gift that Jire uh Darren uh Jiren Durant drops unless it’s a gift that he didn’t catch it. It was gift from the official scorer that it was called a hit. Yeah. Uh and that was an RBI. And the second was at the beginning of them be their comeback yesterday. Uh he had an RBI single that made a 13-2 I think or something like that. So uh or 13 or something along those lines. So, uh, he hasn’t had a lot of me. He’s had a lot. The the comparison I made was, uh, he’s kind of been Louise Luis Arise when they need all rise, not just Luis. And, uh, that hasn’t happened. And I don’t know how they win three straight games. Uh, if Aaron Judge doesn’t rise up. Well, certainly the one thing that I think and and I talked about this with Dan Martin over the weekend uh after even after yesterday’s loss, the Yankees, believe it or not, it feels like they have it lined up if they do want to make a comeback here because of the situation it currently is. You have Carlos Rodon. If you can win game three and him give you six solid innings or seven innings even possibly and the lineup actually produces and you win this game three, game four, you got Cam Schlitler on the mound on what expects to be a bullpen game for the the Blue Jays and then like you said, it’s a it’s a anyone can win game five back in Toronto and you need Max Freed just to be half as good or even half as better as he was in game one. So, or game two, sorry. So, is there hope here? Can there be hope? Or is this really they’re just dead in the water here and it’s just a matter of if not I mean it’s just a matter of when, not if they lose this series. What did Jim Carrey say as Lloyd Christmas? Uh so you say there’s a chance, right? Uh just to give you the numbers, there’s been 90 best of five series in the history of the playoffs that have gone two nothing. The team that has gone up two nothing has won 80 times. Of the last 18 that have gone two nothing uh 17 times, the team that has gone up two nothing has won. Would you like to know the one that didn’t? Sure. The 2017 Yankees went down 0 to 02 to Cleveland. And people understand this was not an AL Central team like you’re thinking. Cleveland was the defending American League champion and had had the best record in the American League. They were really that that’s the best version of of of Cleveland since the Manny Ramirez, Jim Tom, uh you know, Kenny Loftton, and Albert Bell group. They were really good. They almost won the World Series the year before. They got to game seven in 2016. In 2017, you could argue that at least during the regular season, they were even better. They had the best record. The Yankees lost two in Cleveland and they came back. And so a few things just for Yankee fans about that. Let’s go back to Judge. Yeah, the Yankees won that series though. Judge went one for 13 with 11 strikeouts in the last three games of the series. He was he was carried along. How was he carried along? Masahiro Tanaka threw seven shutout innings in game three. Uh, and like if you’re looking what Carlos Rod needs to do, he needs to have a Tanaka moment, right? They got huge hits over those three games from Greg Bird, Brett Gardner, and DD Gregorius. Uh, so like, is Ben Rice going to step up and be Greg Bird? Is Vulpi going to be DD Gregorius? Is uh, uh, Bellinger able to be Gardner? By the way, if you’d like to bring the house down, somehow convince Brett Garner to come back to the flock and throw out the first pitch before game one tomorrow, they they would have had your Savage and you would have the Savage, right? Like back uh somebody who’s been away, somebody who I think the fans love and is, by the way, best friends, you know, really pals with Judge, uh real mentor to Judge in the clubhouse. And their bullpen was great. uh Chapman and uh David Robertson and uh and Keanley were all excellent. So like there was a formula and they got back to game five and game five was pitched by the guy who would go on to win the Sai Young award that year, Cory Clubber and the Yankees kind of got on him and did it. So like I’ve seen and and there’s been three times I think at least since I’ve been around the Yankees with some regularity. They also did this in the 96 World Series uh where they lost two at home to the Braves and then went and won three in a row. Well, that that was a sevename series, but I’ll tell you in a fivegame series in 2001 they went down two nothing to Oakland and then a little bit like Tanaka, they won, I think, a one- nothing game with Mucina. That’s the flip play with Jeter where they keep it one to nothing. They win two Oakland and they come back to New York. They advance. They got all the way to game seven of the World Series. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the Yankees do it, but again, I can’t imagine that there’d be three games, maybe not even one game, where Judge disappears and this happens. The the the the rules are different with the Yankees to me, Ryan. They’ve won 27 championships. And if you’re Bernie Williams or Reggie Jackson, if you’re Derek Jeter or Mariano Rivera, this is it isn’t just you you you make your bones from April to September. you have meaningful October moments. And I would even point out Tino Martinez was a 240 postseason hitter in about I think it was 81 exactly half of regular season. 81 postseason games for the Yankees, but he took Langston deep. He goes deep against the Diamondbacks. Like he’s a forever Yankee in some way because he has those memories. And and Judge of course is going to be a forever Yankee because of how good he’s been during the uh the regular season. But um he’s got to have some moments here. He’s got to have some moments where he puts the team on his back. And if he doesn’t, it’s part of his legacy, too. It’s It certainly is. And I’m I’m just that image of the swing. I I I just can’t get it out of my head. And I knew when it happened, I said, Joel, just put the ball in play, man. Like, don’t even worry about hitting a home run here. just put the ball in play, make them feel it. So, I was the guy who after the game, I don’t know if you saw the interview, I asked him if he was over anxious and he kind of poo pooed it and actually asked me if I had seen the whole at bat and yes, I had seen the whole at bat. Uh, I’ve seen all of his at bats in the postseason if he’d like to know um in person. Uh, and I asked the question because I do feel like at some point it’s probably even he is dying to have the moment and Gossman is a guy he’s owned. Kevin Gosman is a guy he’s owned. He has six homers off of him. He has about a 340 batting average off of him in literally the most plate appearances that anyone has against Kevin Gosman. It’s over 60 plate appearances. It’s not an insignificant number. And you know, again, it was a game in which he I think he got a hit in his first at bat against Gossman and he got a hit later in the game. and you know you trade it all in for just a again even just take the walk there and keep it going or you know get a big hit. It was interesting after the game yesterday when Judge was asked about where he thinks he is. He talked about like think I’m having a good at bats, you know, trying not to do too much, passing the baton. And I’m like, yeah, that’s a wonderful vanilla sound bite, but I’m sure that isn’t what him and his agent said to the Yankees when he got $360 million. I’d like to be a guy who passes the baton. He’s Aaron Judge. Like, it’s a standup moment. like at some point as part of the crescendo on top of a Hall of Fame career. Let’s not kid ourselves where Aaron Judge is going. He’s one of the might be one of the 25 greatest regular season hitters in the history of the sport. Uh, but right now, like if you’re telling me you’re tying a home run off Emanuel Class or some double off of Ken Giles that no even strong Yankee fan will remember is your big moments in October when you’ve now played, I think it’s 63 postseason games. It’s not insignificant. It’s up over towards about 230 240 played appearances. There there needs to come a time like like it feels to me if the Yankees are going to come back and I and Ryan, we’ve done this long enough, you know, I don’t usually go for the sports movie stuff. Yeah. But it feels like if they’re going to mount something, they like almost the surge has to start with him. Like him like a two homer game. Yeah. Uh you know, he hits one in the first, they get ahead and at the first moment where it seems like Toronto might come back, he hits another one. you know, or drives in a couple of runs with guys on base like like they just they’re a home run hitting team and they’re a judge team. When they hit homers and judge plays well, they do a lot of winning and you know they’ve been out homerred eight to one in this series. It’s crazy. Eight to one. It’s crazy. And it’s there’s you know like Stanton who’s the greatest trutht teller of their group just said nope can’t win if we don’t win the home run battle. If we don’t win it we won’t win. like pretty simple and to win the home run battle you need Judge to get on the board. Absolutely. It all starts with him and that’s really what’s been the difference in this series is the fact that game one he has bases loaded doesn’t come through and Vladimir Greer yesterday just puts the the the icing on top of the cake with the grand slam yesterday and just putting that game away. Uh and their star Vlad is leading their way for the Blue Jays. Like I know they’re hitting as a lineup but Vlad is risen to the moment playing Yankee stars. Their chorus is outplaying the Yankee chorus. Their rotation I mean everything is better. The Blue Jays I mean through if if for 162 games they were even. They both won 94 games. Uh but the Blue Jays won the season series and got the series up there where they have homefield. They you called it the house of horrors. It’s what I called it in my column today. They they the the Blue Jays are unleashed up there. The Yankees are cowed. You know, Ryan, one of the reasons I asked at the beginning of the show, what do you think about this is last year we did a lot on the Yankees will self-sabotage and that’s how the season will end. I actually think the Yankees have kind of played brilliantly on defense uh almost this whole postseason. Uh Ryan McMahon is just a tremendous third baseman. Has uh really solidified things. This you’re getting the best version of Vulpi defensively again uh with Dominguez off the the field. I know Judge made an error, but there was a homer after it anyway. It wasn’t like that was the run deciding thing. Like that defense in their outfield is good. I think Austin Wells is a good to very good defensive like like they’re they’re not beating themselves. The Toronto Blue Jays are mauling them. They’re completely outplaying. That’s why I asked you. It’s oftentimes these turn into recrimin into, you know, like uh the blame game and like where do you go? Like who do you like? I just think it’s pretty simple. There’s been 18 innings in this series and the Blue Jays have annihilated the Yankees for 18 innings. The Yank oftentimes we can make this case for a lot of the two years we’ve done this together, Ryan, before like the last couple of months where I think the Yankees have tightened up a lot of things. The Yankees lost as much as the other team won. I think that went right to game five of the World Series. Game one and game five of the World Series, which is where they lost the World Series last year. I don’t think the Yankees have lost these two games. I think the Blue Jays have won these two games pretty clear clearly and the Yankees haven’t looked in their class and that’s about what their hitters are doing to the Yankee pitching and what the Yankee hitting is not doing and what they’re not doing is getting a ball over the fence. They’re back in the Bronx on Tuesday. They hope they’re back in the Bronx on Wednesday. They’ve got to get to they if I could just say one last thing about it. I’m sorry to be belong with it because I think one thing that will be heard is well you know all these years you said they’re too addicted to the homers and I’m like they’re too addicted to the homers and they’re ignoring everything else. I never would say I I I think on this show I’ve always been pretty consistent. If you told me I could be good at everything else or hit homers, I would hit homers. Like it’s the only sure way to get a run at a time where it is very hard to hit pitching. The average fast this postseason is 96 miles per hour. Like it’s ridiculous how good the pitching is. And then you see more of it come in from the bullpen, etc. So like you’ve got to get the ball over the fence. The problem was the Yankees the last few years were getting it over the fence, but they were bad at all these other things. Now they’re pretty they’re really good on defense actually. I mean just McMahon again is transformative uh about how good he is on defense. And I’ve actually think on the whole team McMahon’s had the best at bats. Yeah. Also like he’s played really honored himself in these two games uh in Toronto. He hasn’t struck out. He put the ball hard in play and he’s made made good defensive plays. He’s playing really good. But like the Yankees have to have both column A and column B. They have column B, which is they’re not hurting themselves on the bases. They’re playing really well on defense. This is not a technical airhead. Oh, forgot how many outs there were or whatever. This is Toronto putting the ball over the fence and the Yankees are not putting it over the fence. That’s been the series. And that was nobody’s preview coming into this. Nobody. The Yankees out homerred them by about like 70 over the over the time. And the Blue Jays have gone deep and the Yankees haven’t. Yankees are in their most comfortable place to hit homers for at least one and possibly two nights. It either goes over the fence or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t, I I don’t even know how they win three. Game three. I don’t know how they win game four. And I don’t know how they have a three-game winning streak. They’ve got to decisively win the homer battle for the next one, two or three games. Completely agree, Joel. And it also goes to the fact in last year you had the shield for Judge and Stanton and Sodto. And this year, I mean, Stanton hasn’t really been Stanton like playofflike you would hope. And the strange thing, Ryan, is he has killed the ball, right? He just hitting it into the ground. I thought he hit that ball out in game three, mind you, too. Like I I I thought that was going out. I couldn’t believe it didn’t happen. I think I think he’s hit like nine balls over 100 miles per hour in the postseason. I mean, he has rocketed the ball. It’s been on the ground. Uh, which is kind of not his tradition. Uh, so again, does he kind of like does his launch angle because listen, if he hits it 106, 109, 112 things we’ve seen so far in this postseason and it’s in the air, it’s 430. We know what happens when he does that. Uh, I just I Yeah. And look, it wasn’t as big of a bat because there were two outs, but you know, he strikes out with the bases loaded too there. And you know, like we have become used to over the past few postseasons of him being the rescue guy y for them and getting big hits. And so far there haven’t been big hits from him either. And the only, you know, the the the one thing I’ll say is he’s hit the ball hard but not up. Yep. You know, like the whole homer thing doesn’t make a lot of sense with these two teams. Where the ball’s being hit hard by Stanton doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because it’s, you know, like I’ve seen him rocket into a lot of double plays obviously on the ground, but usually when he hits it hard, it’s up. Yeah. And it hasn’t happened. And and Ryan, it’s like I, you know, I love doing the show with you. It just feels like that could be the sentence and we could all go back, you know, take a nap this afternoon on like they’re either going to hit the ball over the fence and stop the Blue Jays from doing the same. You know, the Blue Jays have gotten multi homer games from Varo and Kirk. They got a homer from Clement Guerrero’s at bats have been great and he has a homer in each game. They are completely winning the long ball game and it’s Yeah, that’s it. Yeah, that is it. Um, on the flip side, with them hitting all these home runs, it I look, I know the stats said that the the Blue Jays don’t strike out much, right? Like you’re going to have a tough time with them because they just they don’t do it. Am I crazy? I’m hearing fan theories that they they were stealing signs, that they are on these pitches. I just feel like that’s just who the Blue Jays have been all year. Not not the power numbers, but they just they don’t strike out. They don’t swing and miss. They are on top of you, and that’s been their approach at the plate all year long. Well, the question is, do you think they’re stealing them on the field or do you think they’re stealing them illegally? If it’s on the field, the Yankees can do no whining. Nobody steals on the field like the Yankees. The question is, do you think that they have this great record at the Rogers Center and a great record at the Rogers Center against the Yankees because something else going on? I think that’s a horrible thing to allege unless you have some real proof because that’s suspendable stuff. that’s throw you out of it. Like after 2017 and the Astros, that’s another level. And I will say something. Um I talked to an executive to do that long scouting report I do for every series. And this was before the Red Sox Yankee series. And he said, “The two teams that are the best in baseball at onfield thievery are the Yankees and the Red Sox. But then when you’re the best at it, you’re also the most paranoid about it because you think like, oh, we can do it. I bet you everybody could do it, but the the executive I talked to said not everybody does it at the level and success level that those two teams and he said the Yankees were the best and he said they’re really great at it. So like we could have a conversation if this onfield gamesmanship that’s gotten heightened where we saw what happened to like Tioscar Hernandez and Matt Stum the other day. Like this isn’t just a Yankee thing. It’s not just a Blue Jay thing. It’s not serious. Everybody is got the high-speed slow-mo cameras on everything and they’re looking for every tell like this is the World Series of Poker, not the World Series of, you know, baseball eventually. And uh I don’t know how great that is for the sport, but again, at a time where the average fast ball is in the mid to high 90s, offenses are looking for every advantage they could get to try to hit the ball. And one of them is to kind of have a general idea of either when it’s come what what is coming or where it’s coming to in what quadrant of the plate. And so uh everyone is trying to do it. And there’s some better than the others. And look, the Blue Jays, they they didn’t just have a low strikeout percentage in their ballpark. Like they they hit the ball. Uh and I mean they really hit the ball. Maybe also like look maybe one of the advantages of getting five days off because you win the division because you won the season series is you could do even more homework for five days while the Yankees and the you know Yankees Yankees already have played two do or die games this postseason. They’re about to play their third tomorrow. So uh like maybe the Blue Jays just like hey let’s use the week well. Let’s go to school on everybody and figure out every little thing we could take advantage of. It’s a real advantage. My final two questions for you, Joel. The first being tomorrow night, Carlos Rodon, uh we saw him do it in game two against the Red Sox. Can he or not, I shouldn’t say can he, do you believe he will be capable of giving them a strong performance tomorrow night against this Blue Jays lineup? You know, the one thing I keep thinking is like uh Rodan and Freed really had to expend heavy to get through the season. Uh they they coincidentally both finished at 195 and a third innings, which I find bizarre that the two guys on the same team had the exact like to the fraction 195 to third innings. And you know, the Yankees don’t get where they’re getting without those guys being not only highle starters, but horses who got the Yankees as far as they have gotten has something, you know, and then Freed worked very hard in game one against Boston. Is that now he’s over 200 innings for the season? Rodan is up over 200 innings for the season. Uh, you know, it’s hard to ignore the fresh arm of Yusavich, the fresh arm of Schlitler. I even thought that like it was about defense. I think Connelly Early threw the ball very well for the Red Sox. He got their defense right like again with all the time we talked about the Yankees beating themselves. The Red Sox beat themselves like like the Red Sox had a real shot to win that series. Maybe they win it if uh Roman Anthony is healthy. M but like they certainly have a much better chance if they play clean baseball in that series. They didn’t. The Yankees did for the most part and advanced. Um and and and again, the Blue Jays are putting it in play. The Yankees are not botching the ball. Now, you can’t botch a ball that goes over the fence. That’s got to stop. Uh as we know, Rodan has some tension for the home run ball. Uh which Freed actually doesn’t and gave up a couple. Uh he’s got to keep him in the park. And you gotta here here and I recognize how silly this is because of how easy it is to say and not do. A veteran pitching coach who I asked like how would you attack the Blue Jays? And he kind of uh you know what Bab is batting average on balls in play. He’s like you just have to pray your b you you got to throw your best pitches to get weak contact and just pray that it’s a good Bab day for you. It’s going to be play. You hope it doesn’t dunk over the infield and go down the line. He’s like, they’re very hard team to strike out a lot. They’re not going to strike out a lot. You got to be really sharp defensively and hope that what your pitching is doing is taking it off the meat of the bat and then you win the Bab game. So, can Rodon do that? He has more tools to do it. Uh, you know, the change up and the cutter are real for him. They helped him have, you know, a really, really top flight, top 10 in the American League among starters season this year and it’s a calling card game. Their season is on the line and they need them to to to see if they could get the ball to the endame. And and look, the endgame is going to have to be close to flawless for three more games also. And that’s a tough thing because the Yankees as the season went along kind of try to transition into more of a strikeout bullpen and you know like Devin Williams is counting on you striking out. David Bednar is counting on you striking out a third of the time. Fernando Cruz is counting on you striking out a third of the time. These guys can’t mount their problems with walks. And Cruz and Williams in particular are guys who are problematic walk guys. You’ve got to do the I’m throwing good pitches and if I get to two strikes early in count and I want to go for a strike out, whatever. But like at two and two, you got to play the game of not getting to three and two. Y I would treat two and two like ball three against this team. I would not add to my problems by walking them. And again, all easier said than done. Hey, just throw a good strike. But the Yankees margin for error, as we know, is now gone. It’s now gone. And they’ve got to figure out like limit the walks, limit bad counts, get this team to put the ball in play like like Kevin Gosman did to the Yankees for five innings where he got he got 15 outs and 50 pitches to begin the game the other day. There is something to be said for Rodon’s change up getting the ball on the ground and him not feeling like the judgment on him is does he go six innings with eight strikeouts. The key thing is to go six innings with two runs or less. Yep. And and get, you know, get the lead to your bullpen. Yeah. Get the lead to your bullpen. And again, how do you get the lead? Aaron Judge going to bat in the first inning, man. You know, Stanton probably get an at bat in the first inning. It’s uh the Shane Bieber we’re gonna see tomorrow finished well, but he ain’t that Shane Bieber. And you’ve got to like begin to change the context of this series. The Yankees have played behind the whole series. Uh and I know what the final score was in game one. That was a close game for twothirds of the game and then the Yankees put in the soft underbelly of their of their bullpen and it got beat up and you know I am curious like Dval looked great again. Does Dval move up and get some some run? He’s going to have to you know they’ve got we know it’s not Luke Weaver. We know it’s not Luke Weaver getting that run. Yeah. I wouldn’t believe that just one pitch got Weaver back on track. It feels like he’s tipping pitches and I feel like I in the post game I don’t think he I I wonder if he’s almost if if if his attempt again the paranoia that’s what it sounded like when Luke was talking the other night after the game was his paranoia has led to him throwing worse pitches. Yeah. Than you know what’s going on. And it’s like and it’s a different age, but literally everyone in baseball knew when Sandy Kofax was throwing his curveball, but it was Sandy Kofax’s curveball, so it didn’t get hit. Uh, at some point I think you’ve got to throw your best stuff. And I get it. There’s, you know what it reminds me of? You’re a fan of uh uh the movie Oceans 11, the remake, the one with Clooney and Damon and those guys. Um they um where they say that you forgot in your casino you’re always being watched on the cameras. That’s Julia Roberts right at the end to um Andy Garcia. Andy Garcia. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s the game now. The cameras are everywhere. They’re super They’re super slow-mo. They’re super detailed. They could hologram people. So like uh oh on somebody told me that there was a picture who was like essentially it was like hourglass stuff. It was like fast ball slider change up. That’s crazy. And they hologrammed it and that’s how they knew fast ball. It was about an inch an inch and a half slider an inch an inch and a half to change up. Any advantage? Huh Joel? Right. And by the way, I I see that all as kind of fair game what’s going on in the world as long as it’s not being relayed through electronic signal during the game. Like but I don’t love it to be honest. Like I think it’s gone too far. I think it’s too I think the overt quality of the Yankees stuff or what we saw Tioscar Hernandez do the other g day with his hand. I think that that look in the old days even Aaron Judge if Aaron Judge did that his next at bat there’d be a fast ball up near his head. And the problem is I think I I use the word problem. It’s not Nobody should have a baseball thrown at them. But the ability to legislate this on the field has gone away where a pitcher can’t just say, “All right, uh, turn to the guy on second base and say, “You’re going to bat again in this game.” And when you do, stay loose in there, my friend. It’s, uh, clean up some of it, but you can’t you can’t do it anymore. Yeah. Uh, it’s And I think that’s what happened to Luke. Yeah. I think I think Luke is now where I said you could become deep in the paranoia of it all. I think Luke is deep in the paranoia of it all. Seems like it. Uh my final question for you, Joel. If the Yankees go down and get swept and it’s ugly again tomorrow night in the Bronx. No, it’s not that. It’s not that. But I will say, is this an ultimate disappointing season is the question in terms of That’s a really good question. So that that’s that’s honestly I’ve been thinking about it a lot. That’s my honest question because right like you finished with the same record like you said with the Blue Jays. You ended up losing the division to them because you did have a division lead earlier this regular season and they had a really bad slump in the middle of the year and I know that they they squashed that narrative against the Red Sox by winning that wild card series. But getting swept by your division rival, a team that you tied for in the AL East, is that an ultimate disappoint disappointment for this season? The Yankees are judged by championships. This would fall short of it. But Ryan, I I would ask a question, and let’s table it because it’s stuff I’m thinking about writing when and if they’re eliminated, but I would just ask this question. Do you think this team is better than last year’s team? Absolutely. Absolutely. Right. So, so it’s a tough thing to say that they got a good draw last year, right? They get Cleveland and Kansas City. Kansas City has a losing record if you take the White Socks, the 120 plus lost White Socks out of it. So, they got a good draw and they got all the way to the World Series. And this year’s team I just think is better. But then again, I think I’ve said this on the show a lot. I thought the 2017 19 and 22 Yankees were better than the 2024 Yankees. They all lost in the ALCS to the Astros. Uh I thought those were better teams. I thought last year’s team was a one-trick pony. hit ball out stadium. You know, that was their trick. And when it happened, it was really good and they could win and overcome stuff against inferior opponents. That’s why I was very careful. The Blue Jays are beating them like like it’s hard and and and that’s to the detriment of the whole group that the Blue Jays are beating them, but I feel it’s a different level of ugly when you’re beating yourself. And I think that they’re a better all-around team this year than they were last year. And they may end up going two and four in the postseason. So, it’s almost like I’m not even sure like one of my jobs is always you got to pivot. Like what would you do next? I’m not positive what I would do next right this second. I’ll come up with something when I got to have my fingers touch a keyboard. Uh, but I think they’ve ended up with a well-rounded team that feels like if Garrick Cole were making this one of these three starts, you know, and then you had Schlitler and and again, no crying in baseball. Zack Wheeler is not available to the Phillies. Their ace is gone, right? The Blue Jays are playing without Boette. Bashet, you know, who’s their second best position player on a daily basis. No crying. But like Ryan, it’s I know the the So I always say there’s fair and there’s sports fair and unfair. In real in real life, I think it would be unfair to do what we’re about to do to the Yankees after their next loss to the Blue Jays if there’s a next loss to the Blue Jays. But in the sports world where everything is small sample, like I can’t you just can’t hide behind small sample forever. like at some point the small sample has to go your way. Y um there will be something that I still haven’t completely put my finger on that the Yankees are lacking to be more bulletproof uh at this time of year. Is it one or two more guys who strike out a little less? I don’t know. Like because you got to give up somebody then. And those guys are hard to find who are also well-rounded players who can like you know it’s it’s the thing about Bellinger that makes him so special is he doesn’t strike out and he’s good at everything. How he’s going to get a lot of money this off season because of that. Uh Kyle Tucker is going to get a ton of money because of that this off season. Like they’re just like I talked to somebody who knows Tucker well because I’m like how’s Kyle Tucker getting hundreds of millions of dollars? I never feel him in the game. He goes, “If you play against them though, he never does bad. He’s only good at everything.” He goes, “You know how hard it is in Major League Baseball to be good at everything?” And he goes, “And and Kyle isn’t just good. He’s very good at everything.” And I’m like, “Okay, I’ll trust you on it.” Because I’m watching Bellinger be very good at everything. They’re hard to find. They get paid a lot of money. Uh, and like one of the problems is like Aaron Judge is pretty good at everything and then he hurt his arm and he strikes out a little too much. But the exchanges he led the world in batting this year by a lot. He still hit and he hit home runs and and here we are back to him. And maybe the Yankees would have championships over the last nine years if Aaron Judge hit in October. And so that’s not changing, right? He’s the captain of the team, signed for nine years, and he’s barely a third of the way into that. He’s a beloved janie. He’s a great player. And it just feels like if he’s if he hit in October, we might be having like a well, at least they won that one time. At least they won those two times. Like he hasn’t he hasn’t had a Reggie like I mean Bernie Williams was a brilliant postseason hitter. He had two walk-off homers in the postseason. Bernie Williams besides tons of other big hits. Like we’re going full circle here. I just think that the next three days if the three four days and three games or one day and me and you doing this again later in the week is a referendum on the captain of the team. like he needs this to be the moment because uh my friend Kenny Rosenthal wrote a column this morning that I agree with which is he’s 34 in April. He obviously is still a great player but at some point his window to do this while he’s still an elite player gets tougher and tougher every year. And one of the reasons they get eliminated is because he hasn’t been April to September judge in October. And Ryan, I just don’t know how they get they go 3 and 0 against the Blue Jays for the rest of 2025 without him being a great player. Well said, Joel. We’re looking forward to your coverage throughout the rest of the week and this postseason. We appreciate you giving us time just to talk about this and we’ll see how it plays out over the next couple days. hopefully if it happens that way. Joel Sherman, thank you, sir. All right, Ryan, all the best and all the viewers, thank you so much.

On today’s episode of Pinstripe Post, Joel and Ryan discuss the Yankees being on the brink of elimination down 0-2 in the ALDS to the Blue Jays. Joel puts it all on the captain Aaron Judge who needs to be better these next 3 games if the Yankees have any hope of coming back in this series.

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