The New York Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs by the Boston Red Sox for the second time in the past four seasons on Tuesday. A day later, former Yankees starter CC Sabathia -- who won a title with the Yankees in 2009 -- expressed his frustrations regarding his former team being eliminated by their biggest rival.
"Our core lost to a team in '18 that's not even the same Red Sox ... Mookie (Betts), Jackie Bradley, (Andrew) Benintendi ... they traded all them," Sabathia said on his R2C2 podcast. "We still have the same core. We come back to Boston four years later and lost to a completely different core ... What the f--- are we doing wrong?"
The Yankees fell 6-2 at the hands of the Red Sox in an AL Wild Card Game that Boston controlled from beginning to end. Yankees starter Gerrit Cole surrendered three runs in just two innings of work.
From an offensive standpoint, the Yankees registered just two runs on six hits throughout the contest. Anthony Rizzo, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton provided five of those hits.
In 2018, Sabathia was on the mound in the decisive Game 4 of the American League Division Series when the Yankees were once again eliminated by the Red Sox. The left-hander gave up three runs on five hits in three innings of work before exiting the contest in a 4-3 Yankees loss.
In recent years, as Sabathia noted, the Red Sox did completely break up that terrific core that featured the likes of Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi and Jackie Bradley Jr. This current group is paced by hitters like Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts and Alex Verdugo. Bogaerts and Verdugo knocked in five of the six runs in Tuesday's win.
It's going to be a very important offseason for the Bronx Bombers to say the least.
