NEW YORK — What will be buried beside the 2018 Yankees and their 100 wins, their 11 shutouts, and their best-in-baseball-history 267 home runs? This season of theirs, a nine-win improvement over 2017, was entirely too successful to become a cautionary tale—and yet short series, cruel and fickle and above all else swift, can make even a hundred-win club wonder what was flawed all along.
The Yankees’ bats went silent this series; that much is obvious. Heading into Game 4, the Yankees as a team were hitting .228/.316/.347 against Boston in the ALDS. It was as though the whole lineup were stocked with utility infielders.