Game Recap: 2025 ALDS, Game 4 – L – TOR: 5, NYY: 2

You can only fend off elimination for so long before it beats you. The 2025 New York Yankees fell 5-2 to the Blue Jays tonight, and their season is over. For the 16th consecutive year, the Yankees have failed to win the World Series.

Image Courtesy: New York Yankees

This is the hardest part of the season. Writing about an elimination game. It’s an incredibly difficult fate to accept, especially for a team like the 2025 New York Yankees that had so much promise.

This was supposed to be the Yankees’ redemption tour. Instead, they got beaten up by the Toronto Blue Jays. They wasted Aaron Judge’s best postseason performance of his career. They wasted their most well-rounded roster since 2009.

It ultimately came down to a multitude of factors, but in the end, Jazz Chisholm Jr’s fielding error in the seventh inning was the biggest factor in the Yankees’ Game 4 loss.

It wasn’t anything like the errors the Yankees made in Game 5 of the World Series last year, but Chisholm still made a costly error. And as poor as the timing was for Chisholm to commit this fielding blunder, the Yankees had a much better defensive season this year. Their outfield was one of the best, both offensively and defensively, in baseball, and their infield defense was much cleaner than last season. But in the postseason, it wasn’t enough.

Against Toronto, the Yankees instructed their pitchers to focus on doing whatever they could to generate swings and misses against a Blue Jays lineup that rarely strikes out. As a result, the only Yankees’ starter to go six innings was Cam Schlittler in Game 4, and because of his velocity, he generated enough to give the Yankees a chance to win. But there was only so much he could do against Toronto’s relentless lineup and their insatiable desire to win. The Yankees weren’t ready for how the Blue Jays approached their at-bats.

That’s not to say this Yankees team didn’t want to win a championship, but the Blue Jays made more of their opportunity. Perhaps this is because being able to play in the postseason is rarer for them than for the Yankees.

The Plan B Yankees of 2025, who pivoted wonderfully after missing out on Juan Soto, were a great team. Max Fried had a terrific season. Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt were fantastic additions. Even Trent Grisham surprised the Yankees offensively. But the impact of injuries to starting pitchers, including Gerrit Cole and Clark Schmidt, was too great to overcome, and throughout the season, the Yankees couldn’t find consistency from their pitching staff.

The Yankees led the majors this season in home runs, but they couldn’t outhomer the Blue Jays. The Yankees’ offensive philosophy is effective, but it doesn’t cut down on strikeouts. At Rogers Centre, putting the ball in play generates results at a higher rate than it does at other ballparks. That’s due to the stadium’s turf and shape. The Blue Jays simply found a way to quiet the Yankees’ offense. That doesn’t mean the Yankees should change their offensive philosophy.

Next, Aaron Boone made a lot of improvements as the Yankees’ manager this season. Although the Yankees still went through a difficult June and July, they were able to regain composure down the stretch. While the team couldn’t achieve its ultimate goal, Boone managed competitively throughout the regular season and postseason. Also, it would be difficult to justify firing Aaron Boone, and to combat any counterarguments on that front, consider the limited options available to replace Boone as manager.

All year long, we wait for October. For 162 games, we assess our team’s ability to contend for a championship. And this year, it felt like they had a chance. A chance to redeem themselves from last season. But again, they fell short. And this time, it was the Toronto Blue Jays who decided their fate.

For now, we’re going to hold off on conversations surrounding the offseason. Cody Bellinger and Trent Grisham will likely enter free agency, and the Yankees will have many decisions to make about next year’s roster. There will be plenty of time to break down those decisions in the coming weeks, though.

For now, here’s to the 2025 Yankees. A team filled with promise that ultimately came up short of a championship.

Again.