A part of me is impressed that the Yankees even continued as a going concern following the 2004 ALCS, in which they succumbed to an epically embarrassing collapse the likes of which we will never see again in the history of professional sports. They probably should’ve folded up shop right there on the spot after the final out of that series, knowing that they sullied their once proud name for good, and did so in such an embarrassing way that even their grandchildren would be forced to live with a lifetime of shame.
But they didn’t! The Yankees kept playing baseball for some reason. And this actually turned out to be a good thing for the rest of us, because they kept flaming out of the playoffs in new and interesting — but always embarrassing! — ways.
But which of these flame-outs was the most embarrassing? Follow me on a wonderful journey through the last 20 years of Yankee playoff failures to find out.
10. 2007 ALDS, L 3-1 to Cleveland Guardians (nee Indians)
On the very first pitch of the last postseason game ever played at Yankee Stadium, Chien-Ming Wang gave up a leadoff home run to Grady Sizemore. The totally lifeless Bronx “Bombers” would eventually fall into a 6-1 hole and fail to ever look competitive. The next year, in the final baseball season that would ever be played in one of the most historic venues in global sports, the Yankees would fail to make the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. Embarrassing and hilariously timed!
9. 2015 AL Wild Card Game, L 1-0 (3-0) to Houston Astros
This is actually the only postseason game I’ve ever attended in person. And it was boring as hell! Because the Yankees couldn’t manage to get a single baserunner to third base the entire night! Impotently embarrassing!
8. 2017 ALCS, L 4-3 to Houston Astros
The Yankees entered Game 6 with a 3-2 lead in the series and Luis Severino and CC Sabathia scheduled to close it out. They blew it, losing the next two games by a combined score of 11-1. Fortunately, they were used to blowing leads in the ALCS at this point. Habitually embarrassing!
7. 2021 AL Wild Card Game, L 1-0 (6-2) to Boston Red Sox
Gerrit Cole finished second in the Cy Young voting in 2021, compiling an ERA+ of 133 and leading the league in wins. He lasted all of 2 innings against the Red Sox at Fenway and, four years later, all of New York is thankful he’s not going to make an appearance against the Sox this year. Unclutch and embarrassing!
6. 2010 ALCS, L 4-2 to Texas Rangers
The Yankees lost the first two home games of this series by a combined score of 18-3. Somehow, that’s not the most embarrassing thing that happened in Yankee Stadium during this series, because this was the year that Yankee fans threw beer and spat at Cliff Lee’s wife, just weeks before the Yankees would begin their pursuit of the Cy Young winner in free agency. Embarrassing and stupid!
5. 2022 ALCS, L 4-0 to Houston Astros
You had a guy who hit 62 homers in the middle of your lineup and you got swept, with son of New England Jeremy Peña playing you off the field! Embarrassing and still somehow about us!
4. 2006 ALDS, L 3-1 to Detroit Tigers
This was the year that Joe Torre dropped Alex Rodriguez all the way down to eighth in the lineup in the middle of a playoff series, after the entire Tri-State area decided that the reason that the Yankees kept blowing it in the postseason was because the greatest player of his generation wasn’t enough of a “True Yankee.” A-Rod, in case you need reminding, compiled 21.4 bWAR for that ungrateful club in the three years leading up to this series. Three years later he would carry them to their only post-Dave Roberts World Series victory. Galaxy-brained and embarrassing!
3. 2012 ALCS, L 4-0 to Detroit Tigers
In the last playoff series that Derek Jeter would ever play in, Captain Intangibles would go 1-5 without 2 strikeouts before somehow breaking his ankle on a routine grounder a couple of steps to his left. Geriatrically embarrassing!
2. 2018 ALDS, L 3-1 to Boston Red Sox
Aaron Judge really thought he was being cool and edgy when he blasted “New York, New York” while walking by the Red Sox clubhouse after winning game two. The Yankees would go on to lose the next two games by a combined score of 20-4, with Brock Holt hitting the only cycle in postseason history in a a sad and empty Yankee Stadium. Cringy and embarrassing!
1. 2024 World Series, L 4-1 to Los Angeles Dodgers
The Yankees had no chance to win this series anyway. But to lose it in the way they did? By allowing five runs in one inning on an absolutely comical series of errors, the shame and embarrassment of which would lead more honorable men to renounce all Earthly possessions, abandon society altogether, and spend the rest of their days taking a vow of silence alone somewhere in in the foothills of Himalayas? Gloriously, wonderfully embarrassing!
