On the night the Yankees said goodbye to David Ortiz, they did the same to their playoff hopes.
Despite beating the Red Sox 5-1 in The Bronx on Thursday, the Yankees were officially eliminated from the race for the second wild card thanks to the Orioles’ 4-0 victory over the Blue Jays.
In reality, though, the writing had been on the wall since two weeks earlier, when the Yankees opened an 11-game road trip with a crushing walk-off loss to Boston at Fenway Park, when Hanley Ramirez took Dellin Betances deep. The Yankees went on to drop the next three games to end any realistic chance of their postseason aspirations.