Yanks miss playoffs: A lot ‘that needs to be fixed’
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Coley Harvey, ESPN Staff Writer
NEW YORK — The end has officially arrived for this year’s New York Yankees.
While a bevy of key injuries and a season’s worth of offensive struggles long made it seem that their run of six straight postseason appearances was likely going to be halted, that conclusion mercifully and officially arrived on a soggy Sunday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.
Under a steady, relentless rainfall and amid powerful, gusty winds brought on by nearby Tropical Storm Ophelia, the Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-1, falling out of contention for the American League’s final wild-card spot.
“It sucks,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That’s what you work hard toward all year round — the wintertime, spring training, on through the season — for an opportunity to play in October and compete for a championship.
“So the reality of that not being in play sucks.”
Yankees captain and outfielder Aaron Judge said he plans to take a vocal and proactive role this offseason in ensuring the organization trends back to where it was prior to this season.
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Judge said. “So we got to hit the ground running, especially when the season ends. We’ve got a lot to work on, a lot of things to change and a lot of stuff going on around here that needs to be fixed.”
Asked what some of those things were, Judge declined to answer, saying they’d stay “in-house.” He added that he has some ideas of changes that need to come, and he plans to work with key decision-makers throughout the major and minor league parts of the organization to ensure they take hold.
With regard to the AL wild-card race, now that the Yankees are out of the picture, the final spot remains a toss-up between the Toronto Blue Jays, Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners.
In the National League, the Diamondbacks still hold a one-game lead over the Chicago Cubs for that league’s final wild card.
Sunday’s loss also dropped the Yankees to 78-77, as they continue flirting with the possibility of being the first set of Bronx Bombers since 1992 to finish a season with a losing record.
“I feel like this club right here can win,” starting pitcher Carlos Rodon said. “It’s kind of one of those things where we have to turn the page and move on. Obviously, we have like six or seven games left, and so we have to finish strong with those and show what we can do on the field and move on from there, and look forward to next year.”
Infielder DJ LeMahieu, a veteran who has played for the Yankees the past five seasons, said improvements he has seen in recent weeks by many of the team’s young call-ups give him belief in what the organization’s future can be.
“The most frustrating part of this year is we know we’re good enough to be where we want to be, we just haven’t done it,” LeMahieu said. “[But] overall, there’s definitely a lot to look forward to. But we know this year’s not good enough.”
Before this season, 2016 was the last time the Yankees missed the playoffs. It was a similarly underperforming team, one that featured the likes of aging All-Stars Alex Rodriguez, Brian McCann and Carlos Beltran.
But following that year’s disappointing finish, New York made postseason appearances annually from 2017 to 2022, including three trips to the American League Championship Series.
It was a run powered by a team of younger, up-and-coming stars. It was paced by the likes of Judge, who won American League Rookie of the Year honors in 2017.
This year’s Yankees have seven games remaining, including a make-up against Arizona on Monday that was scheduled after Saturday’s game was rained out.
Judge, who has been playing the past two months through a toe injury that landed him on the injured list for 51 midseason games, still plans to stay in the lineup often this final week.
“There was talks of stuff getting shut down, but I’ve got to be out there,” Judge said. “I’m a leader on this team, and especially with the young guys we’ve got coming up — you got to show them that you got to post, even if you’re not feeling good, not feeling great. You’ve got to be out there every single day for your teammates.
“So I’m going to be out there.”
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Pete Thamel, Senior College Sports Insider
UConn football coach Jim Mora has agreed to a new contract that includes two additional years that will take him through the 2028 season, the school announced Saturday.
The deal includes a raise to an average of $2.5 million annually over the course of the deal. He made $1.81 million in base salary in 2024, and the new deal will increase that base to $2.1 million in 2025.
Mora’s deal comes after he revived UConn football in his first three years at the school. He took over a program that went 1-11 in the year before his arrival and has led it to two bowl games in three years.
That includes an 8-4 regular season in 2024, which earned UConn a spot in the Wasabi Fenway Bowl against North Carolina on Saturday.
“Three years ago, I tasked Jim Mora with the challenge of leading our football team back to success and through his experience, energy and leadership he has done just that,” UConn athletic director David Benedict said in a statement. “He has taken our program to post season bowl games twice and just guided our team to one of the best seasons in UConn football history, building a momentum to keep this program moving forward. I look forward to his leadership of our football team in the years ahead.”
If Mora leads UConn to a win over North Carolina, it will mark the Huskies’ first nine-win season since 2007 and just the third nine-win season in school history. UConn went to the Myrtle Beach Bowl in Mora’s first year in 2022, the school’s first bowl game since Bob Diaco led the Huskies to the St. Petersburg Bowl in 2015.
Mora is a veteran coach who had two stints in the NFL with the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks. He is in his ninth season as a college head coach, as he took the UCLA job in 2012 and had a successful stint there that included a pair of 10-win seasons. UCLA hasn’t won 10 games in a season since Mora left.
He mentioned at the Fenway Bowl news conference Friday that UConn went undefeated against Group of 5 teams this season, with its losses against Maryland, Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse.
The 8-0 record against teams outside the power leagues, Mora noted, made UConn one of three Group of 5 teams to go undefeated against Group of 5 competition. He said that was a sign of UConn’s growth as a program.
“For this program, we want to start not just competing with but beating Power 4 teams,” Mora said, “and making the statement that we are becoming very relevant again on the football field.”
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, who underwent surgery earlier this week to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right, throwing elbow, declared for the 2025 NFL draft Saturday.
In a social media post, Beck thanked his Georgia teammates and coaches, calling his time with the program “an incredible journey” and writing that he will be around to support the Bulldogs during their College Football Playoff run, which begins Wednesday against No. 7 seed Notre Dame in a quarterfinal matchup at the Allstate Sugar Bowl in New Orleans.
Beck injured his elbow on the final play of the first half against Texas in the SEC championship game Dec. 7. Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed Beck’s surgery Monday in Los Angeles. Beck is expected to make a full recovery, according to the school, and he will resume throwing in the spring.
The 6-foot-4, 220-pound quarterback is in his fifth year at Georgia, but he had another year of eligibility because of the COVID year in 2020 and appeared in only three games in 2021.
Beck, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, went 24-3 as Georgia’s starter the past two seasons. He entered the fall as one of the top NFL prospects at quarterback. ESPN’s Mel Kiper Jr. listed Beck and Colorado‘s Shedeur Sanders as the top quarterbacks for the 2025 draft entering the season. Kiper’s latest Big Board lists Beck as the No. 4 draft-eligible quarterback prospect, behind Sanders, Miami‘s Cam Ward and Alabama‘s Jalen Milroe.
Beck did not match his 2023 numbers this fall but still finished with 3,485 passing yards, 28 touchdowns and 12 interceptions, 11 of which he threw during a five-game midseason stretch. He had 7,426 passing yards and 52 touchdowns over the past two seasons for Georgia, and he was a two-time finalist for the Manning Award and was a second-team All-SEC selection in 2023.
Redshirt sophomore Gunner Stockton replaced Beck in the SEC title game, which Georgia won 22-19 in overtime, and will start against Notre Dame.
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