by Nicholas Cicale (@nickcicale)

The Yankees’ 2015 season crashed and burned in three hours last night, as they were shut down by the Houston Astros in the wild card play-in game. It was a bad matchup on paper, with Cy Young front runner Dallas Keuchel dominating the lefty-heavy Yankees lineup two previous time already in 2015 (16 shutout innings only allowing 10 base runners). While Yankees pitching did an admirable job against the Astros power-hitting bats, the Yankees offense was predictable useless, scattering three hits through the nine innings. The team looked helpless, swung at pitches aimlessly (Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez had back-to-back 3-pitch swinging strikeouts to start the ninth inning), and just wasn’t suited for a one-game playoff. As a result, it was a boring and uncomfortable game to watch, and the once electric Yankees stadium crowd (wrongfully) let the team have it the final two innings of the contest, booing Brett Gardner to start when he came just short of hustling out a slow dribbler to first base. (more…)