The Yankees will not accomplish the chief goal of their regular season, which will make their chief goal of the postseason harder to accomplish.
That Aaron Boone’s group will have to play a best-of-three series in the wild-card round — almost certainly against the Red Sox in The Bronx and almost certainly without Aaron Judge — is discouraging for a club that sought to avoid the same precarious position that it encountered last season.
That Boone’s group was forced to watch the Rays clinch — and celebrate the AL East title that the Yankees made it their mission to win — on The Bronx grass sure must have added some irritation and maybe some motivation.
One year later, the Yankees will enter the postseason the same way: through the dreaded back door that adds to their World Series degree of difficulty.
The Rays celebrated a 6-1 nightcap victory and division title on Tuesday night at the Stadium, where a 2-0 Yankees matinee win simply delayed the inevitable.
In Game 157, Tampa Bay (96-61) won its first AL East championship since 2021, and the Yankees (90-67) wrapped up the top wild card for a second consecutive season.
After Bryan Baker induced a ground out from George Lombard Jr. to end it, Baker raised his arms in triumph and the Rays began congratulating one another while the Yankees quietly shuffled out of their own dugout.
Last year it was the Blue Jays who edged out the Yankees (through a tiebreaker), forcing Boone’s crew to sweat out a three-game set against Boston before wilting against that Toronto club, which could arrange its starting pitchers and had home-field advantage.
And so the Yankees were vocal all spring and all season that this year, they expected better.
But amid a campaign with too many lulls, too many notable injuries and not enough step-ups during those injuries, they will enter October in the same position: likely fighting the Red Sox for a chance at knocking off AL East champions that they could not solve in the regular season.
The small-market, penny-pinching Rays did not steal the division but won it decisively.
The Yankees had been playing catch-up since June 28 and never caught up. With two more now meaningless games to play, the Rays have won seven of the 11 head-to-head matchups.
For a brief glimpse at what has gone wrong this season for the Yankees, consider how they lost the nightcap:
— A team that has not hit enough without Judge again did not hit enough without Judge, no-hit until the seventh inning against Drew Rasmussen. Heliot Ramos’ double ensured the night might be embarrassing but would not be humiliating.
— A team that did not capitalize enough on its excellent starting pitching again did not capitalize enough on its excellent starting pitching. They won the opener behind eight shutdown innings from Carlos Rodón, but a slip from Max Fried in the second game was the only opening Tampa required.
All it took in the third inning was an infield single, a walk, a flyout that advanced both runners and a ground out that scored the go-ahead run. The deficit would grow in the seventh because …
— A team that did not play enough clean baseball again did not play enough clean baseball. With runners on first and third and one out, Taylor Walls pushed a bunt toward first base. Fried pounced, did not believe he had a play on Chandler Simpson at home and so he looked toward first, where no one covered. First baseman Luis García Jr. had charged, and Jazz Chisholm Jr. lingered around second base.
No out was recorded in what became a three-run frame that became one more regrettable inning in a season in which the Yankees have had too many to earn a first-round bye.
