A hallmark of the Aaron Boone Yankees has been a refusal to ever get too high or too low. No matter what's going on around them, their sense of self-confidence just never seems to waver — it's always about believing in their own abilities, and staying the course.
That's a useful thing when you're weathering a media storm in the midst of a very long regular season. But when you're now down 0-2 in the ALDS after one of the worst defensive performances anyone has ever seen, it just comes across as denial.
Yankees' Game 2 reaction doesn't inspire confidence in ALDS comeback
Which brings us to Jazz Chisholm Jr., who told reporters after Monday's loss that "we beat ourselves today, in a lot of ways." While that's certainly true, it's only relevant if you resolve to, you know, stop doing that in the future. Which is why is was so baffling that Chisholm Jr. then turned around and claimed that he had no regrets about his first-inning error, in which he blindly threw the ball halfway up the first-base line to allow Tampa's first run to score.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. was asked how he'd do-over the Junior Caminero ground ball in the first inning that led to the first run of ALDS Game 2
— SNY Yankees (@snyyankees) October 6, 2026
"I'd probably still throw it, honestly. The play that was trying to be made. I feel like I could've made an even better throw" pic.twitter.com/EgQa71F3kb
I'm sorry, what? You'd probably still throw it, despite the fact that you couldn't see where you were throwing and that Junior Caminero was going to be safe anyway?
Ryan McMahon, just hours after booting a ground ball on the very first at-bat of the game, claimed that there had been no postgame message in the Yankees clubhouse yet, saying only "we'll see". “These first two games have nothing to do with the next three,” he added.
It's hard to avoid the feeling that New York's players — and, presumably, coaches — seem to think that all that's required is more of the same but better. Kick the ball around all night long? No big deal. Fail to have any discernable approach at the plate? Fine. Put yourself on the precipice of another ALDS debacle? No reason to panic, we'll get 'em next time.
It's worth asking where exactly the Yankees' self-confidence comes from, because from the outside, this is a team that hasn't won anything in recent memory, and has in fact collapsed in increasingly exasperating ways over the course of the last 17 years without winning a World Series title. And unless something drastically changes in the next 48 hours before Game 3, they're going to meet the same fate in 2026.
It's put up or shut up time for Aaron Boone and this entire Yankees era
Seriously, when does something have to give? I understand that playoff baseball is a crapshoot, and that this has been by and large a very good team during the regular season under Boone. But at what point do you look at the results you've gotten in October — not just falling short, but doing so in ways that are frankly unbecoming of one of the richest franchises on Earth — and decide that maybe something about your process is faulty?
It seems clear that New York's attitude internally is just that this is what can happen in short series sometimes, that all there is to do is to not let any cracks in the clubhouse foundation begin to form. But maybe a little desperation would do this team good. Maybe that extra focus would result in some cleaner baseball, rather than inexcusable decisions on the bases, sloppy play in the field and a failure to have any idea how to attack Tampa's pitching staff at the plate.
Of course, in the end, it doesn't matter what anyone says. All that matters is the product that Boone and Co. put on the field, starting in Game 3 on Wednesday night. Win, and all will be forgiven; you can dunk on the haters to your heart's content. Lose, and you've officially forfeited the right to the benefit of the doubt, to tell yourselves that you were the better team if only it'd played out that way.
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