Marlins shut out Yankees
Slumping Bombers clinch 5th seed despite shutout loss to Marlins in season finale
It was all joy for the Marlins after beating the Yanks 5-0 in the Bronx Sunday. The Bombers will face Cleveland in the first round of playoffs./
The clouds gathered over Yankee Stadium in the fifth inning Sunday, but the concern about the end of the Bombers’ season has been hanging over them for a week now. The Yankees offense was shut out for only the second time this season as the Marlins beat them 5-0 in the final game of the reg ular season.
The Yankees finished the coronavirus-pandemic shortened 60-game season 33-27. The Marlins (31-29), behind a tremendous managing job by former Yankees great Don Mattingly, took two out of three, clinching their playoff berth here Friday night and winning the final series played at Yankee Stadium in 2020.
The Yankees got lucky Sunday and backed into the American League’s fifth seed. They got help from the Orioles, who beat the Blue Jays, meaning that the Yankees head into the playoffs as the No. 5 seed. The Yankees are heading to a tough matchup with likely AL Cy Young winner Shane Bieber in Cleveland.
The concern has been growing for a week and Sunday the alarms should be going off, because the Yankees head into the playoffs having lost four of their last five games and six of their last eight. Despite the fact that DJ Lemahieu finished with the highest batting average in the majors and Luke Voit finished with the most home runs in baseball, their offense is a major concern going into the postseason.
Lemahieu went 2-for-3
Sunday to finish with a .364 batting average for the season to become the first man in the modern era to win the batting title in both leag ues. He also won the National League title in 2016. He’s the first Yankee since Bernie Williams in 1998 to win the AL batting title.
Voit, who went 0-for-3 and finished with 22 homers, claimed the first home run title for a Yankee since Alex Rodriguez in 2007.
But they could not carry the Yankees alone. Over the previous seven games, the Bombers are slashing .234/.340/.351 with four home runs. They have hit home runs in only one of their last seven games.
“Inconsistent is one way of putting it. But here we are, we’ve given ourselves a chance to go compete for a championship, and that ’s what our goal was, when we set out back in spring training 1.0, and then nothing changed when we got here in summer camp,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of his team’s season.