After four straight years of making a playoff appearance, the New York Yankees have once again fallen short of their World Series expectations.

The Yankees’ 2020 season concluded with a 2-1 loss on Oct. 9 to the Tampa Bay Rays, losing the American League Division Series 3-2.

After jumping to a 1-0 lead in the series, Tampa Bay won two games straight. Facing elimination, the Yanks won a decisive game four by a score of 5-1. In the win-or-go-home game five, the Yanks could not get the bats going.

Game five was low scoring for both teams and there were a total of six hits in the ball game, three from each team. Gerrit Cole pitched amazing on only three days’ rest. He went strong for 5.1 innings, one hit and one run on an Austin Meadows homer, and he struck out nine batters.

The Rays sent Tyler Glasnow out on two days’ rest. The Yankees could not take advantage of that as Glasnow pitched the first 2.1 innings, not allowing any runs. The Rays then sent out Nick Anderson, Pete Fairbanks and Diego Castillo, all for two innings each. Tampa Bay’s pitching has been solid throughout the whole series and that stayed true through game five.

The three hits by the Yankees in game five were by Aaron Judge, Aaron Hicks and Gleyber Torres. Another three Yankees were able to get on base after ball four; aside from that, the lineup went stone cold.

It is once again back to the drawing board for New York. There is work that needs to be done to get the Yankees over the hump to the next level. Over the next few weeks, stay tuned for my thoughts on what the Yankees should do over this offseason with both the team and the front office.

For comments/questions about this story, email sports@thewhitonline.com or tweet @TheWhitOnline.