Aaron Judge stood at the plate in Toronto, feeling the pressure of the postseason on his broad shoulders. The numbers tell an interesting story: the Yankees’ captain has eight hits in 18 at-bats and a 1.024 OPS in five playoff games. It looks good on paper, but it doesn’t have the thunder. Judge has hit only one double and no home runs. Two runs scored and two RBIs can’t make up because he didn’t hit with his usual power. The Blue Jays showed how weak their lineup was, and even though Judge got on base, he never hit the game-winning hit that makes him so valuable. His bat’s power spoke louder than any batting average could.

In Game 1, Toronto beat New York 10-1, and in Game 2, they beat them 13-7. In 16 innings, the Yankees only scored eight runs and gave up 23. They didn’t do very well against Toronto’s pitchers, and they were especially bad against Trey Yavich, who had only pitched 14 major league innings before his outstanding performance. The Yankees came into this series as the division champions and had hit 30 more home runs than any other team in baseball. But their power core—Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Ben Rice, and Trent Grisham—hasn’t hit a single home run when it counts.

Michael Kay, a longtime Yankees broadcaster, gave a harsh review that showed how bad the team was feeling. “The Yankees just looked awful in Toronto. In fact, they have looked awful in Toronto all year. They are 1 and 8 north of the border,” Kay stated. “They got embarrassed. There’s no other way to put it. It’s an embarrassment what happened to the Yankees over the weekend.” He highlighted how Max Fried, brilliant against Boston, turned “dreadful” against Toronto, while Yavich “threw five and a third no-hit dominating innings, 11 strikeouts” against a Yankees team that “looked absolutely lost.”

Kay’s frustration centered on the power drought. “This is a team that out-homered the second-place team in baseball by 30 home runs… But so far in the postseason, no home runs by Stanton, no home runs by Judge, no home runs by Rice, no home runs by Grisham,” he explained. The analyst didn’t sugarcoat the situation for Aaron Boone’s team, but he did give them some hope by saying that Carlos Rodon would be pitching against Shane Bieber, who was not in great shape.

This moment is heavily influenced by history. In a best-of-five series, the team that is up 2-0 has won 80 out of 90 times. But Boone said to focus on the task at hand. “We approach it like we have really all season,” the manager said. “It’s about winning today, period, and not getting ahead of that and even keeping it smaller than that. It’s about going up and trying to win every pitch.” The Yankees need Judge to get his power back, they’re pitching to get better, and three wins in a row to avoid leaving the playoffs early, which would make this season a complete failure.

But the problems this Yankees team is having go beyond what happens on the field. Boone has been getting a lot of criticism for the choices he’s made during this postseason run. After he made some controversial lineup choices, fans and the media started to question his judgment even more.

Yankees’ manager Aaron Boone is under fire as pitching staff collapses

Aaron Boone has a lot more to deal with than just managing elimination scenarios. After benching Jazz Chisholm in the first game of the series, the manager had to defend his roster decisions right away. The backlash got so loud that Chisholm had to publicly address the supposed rift.

“There was never a problem between me and Aaron Boone. He’s been my manager all year, and I’ve stood behind him all year. We always have disagreements—I mean, I played third base this year and we had a little bit of a disagreement in that—but at the end of the day, I always stand with Boonie because he understands where I come from. He knows I’m a passionate player, and he knows I wear my feelings on my sleeve. He knows that I’m here to compete,” Chisholm told reporters.

The Yankees made it through the first round, but Toronto showed how weak their pitching staff was. Max Fried was expected to stabilize the series before going back to the Bronx. Instead, the veteran lefty fell apart in Game 2, giving up runs in bunches during the 13-7 loss that gave Toronto a bigger lead. Jake Rill observed that Fried’s “uncharacteristic start by the 31-year-old southpaw became a reason for Toronto’s 13-7 win that pushed its advantage in the series to 2-0.”

People are talking about offseason moves because the rotation has been having problems. Sandy Alcantara, a former Cy Young winner, is being talked about in trade talks. Some ideas involve sending Jasson Domínguez and prospect Carlos Lagrange to Miami. Alcantara bounced back from injury problems at the start of the season to have a 2.68 ERA in his last eight starts of 2025. Getting him would give this rotation the ace it really needs, but it seems too early to talk about it since the Yankees are still trying to stay alive.