In the blink of an eye, the chance to win a 28th World Series was gone for the New York Yankees.
“So many different emotions,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said following this 6-4 loss that delivered the pennant to Houston for the second time in three years. “It’s the ultimate pain you can feel in sports, knowing all that so many put into it, knowing how good of a club we have. For it to end that way, it’s hard, our guys are hurting”.
The Astros were two outs away from closing the Yankees out before LeMahieu tried to join a select corps of pinstriped October idols, a group that includes his boss, Boone, and Chris Chambliss, and Bucky Dent, and Scott Brosius. Except after getting two quick outs in the bottom of the ninth, Aroldis Chapman walked George Springer, then fell behind Altuve, 2-and-0. Altuve let one slider pass for a strike.
This hard-to-fathom season ended in the worst possible way. Everything about who the Yankees were in 2019, and what they were, was represented in that top of the ninth.
“No matter how many games we won in the regular season, this is a failure,” Aaron Judge said, in the middle of the despair. “I think about the season as a whole, guys getting injured, guys getting back, a lot of ups and downs, I think about missed opportunities and some guys I might not play with again …”
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