The Yankees officially began their 2018 journey Feb. 13 in Tampa, Fla., unafraid of the World-Series-or-bust mantra accompanying the club reminiscent of the George Steinbrenner years.
"If we don't win (in 2018), I think it's not a great year for us," Dellin Betances, a Yankee since he was drafted in 2006, said that first day pitchers and catchers reported. "It's probably the first season I've ever come in with those expectations."
Aaron Boone, taking over for Joe Girardi, who led the club to Game 7 of the ALCS the year before yet was not brought back, found that kind of expectation music to his ears.
"He's right about the World Series, it would be a great year," Boone said in his spring training kickoff news conference. "We understand the expectations, and I think one of the things that's exciting to me is to hear some of those comments (from players) ... embrace the expectation. We're going to embrace that and we're going to expect to be great."
The Yankees were great at points of the season, one in which they went 100-62 but not as consistent as the AL East behemoth they spent the year pursuing, the Red Sox. The Yankees' rival proved better built for the six-month regular season, going 108-54, and for the shorter burst that is the playoffs, capturing the best-of-five ALDS in four games.
As Brett Gardner, the longest-tenured Yankee (drafted in 2005), put it in the quiet of the home clubhouse in the early morning hours Wednesday after his club was eliminated, 4-3, in Game 4: "This is the time of year when good teams get sent home and great teams move on."
Of the Red Sox, against whom the Yankees were a more than respectable 9-10 during the season, he added: "They outhit us and they outpitched us and they outplayed us. You have to tip your caps to them. They didn't win 108 games during the season by just being a decent team. They have a really good team over there. I felt like we could beat them and we didn't play our best baseball and we got beat."
The Yankees were oh-so-close to pushing the series to a fifth game _ Gary Sanchez missed by mere feet a walk-off grand slam to left in the bottom of the ninth against a wobbly Craig Kimbrel _ but, in the end, Didi Gregorius summarized it best.
"We came close," the shortstop said. "But close is not enough."
Boone took plenty of criticism for being slow to his bullpen, one he said going into the postseason he would be "aggressive" with given its depth of power arms but ultimately was not. The Yankees' undoing in the series, however, was their lack of hits when it counted. A team that hit a single-season record 267 homers and ranked second in the majors in runs with 851, scored a total of four runs in Games 3 and 4 at the Stadium. The Yankees, who took advantage of Kimbrel's wildness in a two-run ninth, hit .214/.295/.321 in the series. It brought about a fresh round of critiques of the roster being overly reliant on the home run.
"We want to continue to get better, so we're chasing the perfect offense," Boone said. "As a major-league athlete, we're chasing to be the best we can be. Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough, and we'll continue to work at getting to that point where we're as complete in every department as we can be, offensively, pitching, defense. You're always chasing Utopia, you know. We're chasing that."
A chase commencing far sooner this October than the Yankees had hoped or expected.
