One year and 10 days ago, the Yankees played their final game of the 2023 regular season.
They lost 5-2 in Kansas City to a 106-loss Royals team. Starter Michael King, now on the Padres, got blasted for eight hits and four runs in four innings. A young outfielder named Everson Pereira, who spent the entire 2024 season with Triple-A Scranton, whiffed through a bounced curveball for the final out. The Yankees and their $273 million payroll finished the season 82-80.
New York had been statistically eliminated a week earlier — they were emotionally eliminated well before that — but the final day of the regular season still meant something.