About The Playoffs: Meanderings of My Mind
About The Playoffs: Meanderings of My Mind
By Tim Kabel
October 5, 2026
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The Yankees were off yesterday after they opened the Divisional round of the playoffs by losing the first game to the Tampa Bay Rays Saturday night 1-0. They were practically no-hit in the game. Unlike the Wild Card series, the Divisional series has days off. They were off yesterday, they will be off Tuesday and if they make it that far, they will be off on Friday. Saturday was not a day-off for the Yankees; it was just an off-day. Since I don't have a game to recap, I will now move from topic to topic as if I was antiquing, holding a cup of warm apple cider in one hand and a pumpkin donut in the other.
· The Yankees were totally dominated by Drew Rasmussen and the Tampa Bay Rays on Saturday. The Rays did not put on an offensive display themselves, but they won the game. The Yankees had one hit. It was the 8th inning, two-out double by Austin Wells. As we all know, Wells was thrown out trying to turn the double into a triple. Austin Wells is not Mickey Rivers on the base paths. He's not Mickey Mantle on the base paths. I doubt he could beat Mickey Mouse running from second to third. Either way, Wells looked pretty goofy getting thrown out. He broke one of the oldest axioms in baseball, “never make the first or third out at third base.” The problem is that under Aaron Boone, axioms like that and other fundamental parts of the game are ignored, forgotten, or dismissed. When the Yankees lost the 2024 World Series to the Dodgers, it was reported that the Dodgers believed that the Yankees were a fundamentally weak team and that eventually, they would make mistakes that would lead to their own defeat. That's exactly what happened. That has not improved. The Yankees are a fundamentally weak and undisciplined team and have been throughout the entirety of Aaron Boone’s tenure as manager. That will not change. During the 162-game regular season, it is not as important as it is in a very short playoff series. Would the Yankees have scored the tying run if Wells had stayed at second base? No one knows. But as the old slogan for the lottery went, “you have to be in it to win it”. Wells was thrown out; the inning was over and that was that. After the game, Wells made attempts to justify what he did, saying that he was trying to make something happen and that if he had been on third base, he could have scored on a wild pitch, a passed ball or practically anything. Unfortunately, when you are thrown out by a quarter mile, that argument falls by the wayside. I know there are going to be people saying it's not fair to blame Aaron Boone for this. They will say that the third base coach, Luis Rojas, put up the sign for Wells to stop running but Wells ran through it. That is true. That's why I'm not blaming Luis Rojas. Aaron Boone has created an environment in which players can ignore the coaching staff. The players on the Yankees are fundamentally weak because Aaron Boone does not make fundamentals a priority. That will never change. If the Yankees wind up losing this series to the Rays, they may have to realize that in order for things to change, they need to change the manager.
· My older son, Jack, surprised me on Saturday night with a birthday present. It was a belated gift but due to his commitment to the army reserves and other issues, it was completely understandable. He purchased a beautiful, heavyweight 100% cotton T-shirt with the number and image of George Lombard junior on it. Jack knows that I have been impressed with Lombard and I guess he decided that I need a new favorite player. It is a very nice, cream-colored shirt that I will wear proudly. I imagine George Lombard junior will be with the Yankees for quite some time. Hopefully it will have more of a lasting value than my Oswaldo Cabrera jersey, which I will still wear proudly, particularly when the Yankees play the Reds.
· By dropping the first game to the Rays, the Yankees have shifted all the pressure onto themselves. I know they have Cam Schlittler pitching on Monday night. The Yankees absolutely need to win that game. At this point, the Rays need to win two of the next four games. The Yankees need to win three of the next four games. If the Yankees were to lose on Monday, they would need to sweep the three remaining games. Tampa would only need to win one game. Tampa would also have the chip that drew Rasmussen would be pitching another game in their pocket. Therefore, the Yankees absolutely need to win on Monday night. I have tremendous confidence in Schlittler. I do not have tremendous confidence in Aaron Boone. Will he pull Schlittler too early? Will he once again insist on using Giancarlo Stanton as a pinch hitter? During Stanton’s at bat on Saturday night, Dave Sims was prattling on during the radio broadcast about how it would only take one big swing from Stanton to tie the game. It would have been much more likely for one big swing to cause Stanton to pull a muscle or snap his hamstring or something else. The man last played on April 24th. It was highly unlikely that he was going to be able to do anything. Now, he was pinch hitting for Ryan McMahon so, the bar was not set too high. However, Stanton did strike out, which was the most likely outcome. At this point, Heliot Ramos would have been a better option. Jose Caballero, who would have come in to play third base had there been a bottom of the ninth inning, would have also been a better option. We can't look at Giancarlo Stanton now and imagine than he is the same player who dominated the postseason in 2024. He's not. He is now a player who only appeared in a handful of games for the Yankees this season. He is now a player who injured himself three separate times this season, once while jogging from first base to second base, and another time when he fell practicing running the bases and injured his other leg. Stanton is now a player who can't open a bag of chips without severe pain. Stanton spent the vast majority of the season on the IL. To expect him to be the savior for the Yankees at this point would be like expecting Barney Fife to save us against a gang of marauding criminals. The only difference is Stanton would not be amusing.
· The fact that the Yankees lost on Saturday should in no way detract from the tremendous performance given by Gerrit Cole. Cole was outstanding. He gave up one run. Drew Rasmussen was practically perfect. Cole was excellent and pitched well enough to win under most circumstances. I believed that the Yankees would have their hands full with the Rays before this series even started. I predicted that the Rays would win in five games. Now, the Yankees have their backs up against the wall. Unfortunately, in a situation like that, they will need to rely on their manager to make critical decisions that will lead to them winning games. Expecting Aaron Boone to do that based on his history, is even less logical and sensible than relying on Giancarlo Stanton to be the savior right now. See above reference. Fife, Barney.
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