Yankees Need a Drastic Identity Shift to Survive Rays

The New York Yankees will have to play clean baseball to come back in this series against the Tampa Bay Rays, and it's hard to believe they have 27 innings of clean baseball ahead of them.

The New York Yankees manager, Aaron Boone, looks on during warmups before the game against the Tampa Bay Rays in game two of the ALDS for the 2026 MLB Playoffs at Tropicana Field. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The New York Yankees' offseason mantra was "run it back." They brought back largely the same team as last year heading into this season, and while the faces in this postseason are different with the infusion of George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones, the results are the same.

After a medley of ugly errors, they lose Games 1 and 2 on the road to a bitter AL East rival and come to the Bronx on life support. One wrong move and they'll have Junior Caminero smoking cigars with David Ortiz on the Fox broadcast, pronouncing that the "Yankees lose," and that might inspire the Yankees to run it back one more time.

In many ways, this season could mirror last year. They get their dramatic Game 3 win, feel like there's an opportunity to end the season, but then reality crashes down in Game 4, and a long offseason with an impending lockout awaits them. Who knows when the Yankees will get their chance at a reprieve?

Pessimism isn't fun, and it's better to believe the Yankees can do what they did in 2017 when they found themselves in an 0-2 hole heading into the Bronx after a disappointing start to the ALDS in Cleveland. Still, it begs the question of whether the Yankees can play clean baseball long enough to extend the series back to the Bronx. Their comedy of errors was reminiscent of what they did in Game 5 of the 2024 World Series, and it's hard to believe they'll suddenly play a clean brand of baseball.

Changing their identity overnight

There's no reason to throw in the white towel just yet, but if the Yankees want to prove they're a different team than the 2025 squad, they can start by taking at least the first two in the Bronx. The dramatic Game 3 win can't be followed by Carlos Rodon throwing yet another stinker in the postseason for the Yankees—something of a regularly scheduled program on his part, unfortunately.

For the Yankees to keep their season alive, that means George Lombard Jr. not booting baseballs, Trent Grisham being able to leg out fly balls and cut them off before they reach the wall. Rodon not melting down in a postseason game at the slightest bit of adversity—skirting disaster the way Cam Schlittler and Gerrit Cole did in their respective starts—could be the biggest key here.

Do the Yankees even have it in them to do these simple things, though? How could anybody be faulted for saying no here?

It may seem cynical to think this way, but considering this year started with the Yankees saying they were going to essentially bring back the same team, this series ending in three games or even potentially four shouldn't shock anybody. The idea was that Brian Cashman believed his Yankees were good enough to go deeper than they did last year, but in the end, they essentially had the same season as those 2025 Yankees, but without Aaron Judge in the mix.

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