The Yankees looked to be sitting pretty in their efforts to lock up the top Wild Card spot after a 5-1 road trip against the Red Sox and Blue Jays, but after losing two straight to the Rays, who had already locked up the top spot in the playoffs, the Yanks needed a win on Sunday just to avoid a 163rd game.
The Yankee offense, so prevalent during the road trip, disappeared over the weekend in the Bronx and needed an infield single by Aaron Judge in the bottom of the ninth to finally get on the board for a 1-0 walk-off win, securing the second Wild Card spot.
As it has many times this season, it wasn’t pretty, but New York is going back to the postseason.
“It’s been a crazy, wild, tough year,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Fitting that it would come down to the last day to get in, but I love our group, I love our guys, I love our compete. It hasn’t always been perfect, but we’re ready to take our shot and feel like we can beat anyone when we’re at our best.”
The Yanks certainly didn’t look their best this weekend, being outplayed by a Tampa team that will be waiting in the ALDS should New York survive the Red Sox on Tuesday night. It will be a do-or-die game where seemingly any outcome is possible, especially with how the Yankees have fared over the last 162 games. The team rattled off a 13-game winning streak in late August, and just two weeks later, were trying to end a seven-game losing streak. They were as many as five games below .500 this year and 24 games over. A year of ups and downs now comes down to one game, after avoiding a tiebreaker scenario came down to one swing from Judge to ignite pandemonium, and plenty of relief, in the Bronx.
“I thought the fans were into it the whole game,” Boone said. “A 0-0 game and it was this awesome, edge-of-you-=seat kind of game. I thought the energy in the stadium was great. Then you have a walk-off win, and that adds to the celebration.”
If the Yankees’ season already didn’t feel like it went according to plan, the final game of the season summed it up perfectly. The offense, expected to be as high-powered as any in the league, had no answer for Michael Wacha and his 5.05 ERA. So the Yanks had to lean on their pitching, only not the typical arms you would have expected when the season began. Not Zack Britton, but Wandy Peralta came in to face the lefty-heavy part of the Rays’ lineup after Jameson Taillon departed. Then it was midseason acquisition Clay Holmes’ turn, and after Chad Green, it was Jonathan Loaisiga, the team’s best reliever this year. Nothing about Sunday’s win was what one would have expected heading into the year, but after six months of evidence, it became the kind of game you could expect from this group.
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“With getting Sevy back and getting king back in the mix and what he’s meant, and obviously Wandy and Leutge, German back now, all these guys are capable of getting real big outs,” Boone said. “It is a group we have a ton of confidence in right now. I think the biggest thing is because of the depth, hopefully they’re able to protect each other and not wear anyone out.
“To have fix, six, seven, eight guys out there that you feel really good about in certain situations, even in big-time games, that’s something to be encouraged by as we head into the postseason.”
The offense will have to be a lot better against Nathan Eovaldi on Tuesday, but on Sunday, the Yanks were able to soak in the reality that the playoffs were still part of their story, even if everything else about the season was frustratingly unpredictable. Now, the question of which Yankee team will show up at Fenway Park lingers.
“There’s some joy to that, and some joy to the ride we’ve been on,” Boone said. “It hasn’t been easy at all. A lot of people pour a lot into getting to this situation. We’ll enjoy this for a few minutes, and then it’s time to get back to work.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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