Yankees stunned as championship aspirations are dashed in ALDS - ESPN

NEW YORK — Late Wednesday and into early Thursday, as clubhouse attendees taped together boxes for players to pack and everyone said their goodbyes for the winter, a sense of disbelief hovered over the New York Yankees.

From manager Aaron Boone to superstar Aaron Judge on down, the Yankees believed this team was more talented, more complete, better equipped to handle October than the club that went to the World Series a year ago.

But the 2025 Yankees will not reach the World Series. They will not even reach the American League Championship Series. Their season ended Wednesday night with a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 4 of the ALDS at Yankee Stadium to extend their championship drought to a 16th season, the third longest in franchise history.

«It's tough to describe,» Judge said. «We didn't do our job, didn't finish the goal. We had a special group in here, a lot of special players that made this year fun, but we didn't get the ultimate prize, so we came up short.»

Standing in the Yankees' way to the championship series was the team that stood in their way of the AL East title. Toronto went 8-5 against the Yankees during the regular season to claim the tiebreaker that proved to be the difference in getting a bye through the wild-card round when the teams finished with identical AL-best 94-68 records.

But for as ugly as the first two games of the series were for the Yankees — Toronto outscored them 23-8 in blowouts at Rogers Centre — they reported to work Wednesday a confident bunch, riding high after Judge, blistering at the plate in this postseason, delivered a monumental three-run home run in Game 3 that helped extend their season.

On paper, they had the pitching advantage: rookie Cam Schlittler, coming off