Paul Sancya /Associated Press
The slumping Alex Rodriguez, left, watched much of the Yankees-Tigers series from the bench. More Photos »
DETROIT — When it mattered most, $200 million could barely buy a hit.
The Yankees, the richest and most accomplished team in baseball, were swept from the postseason on Thursday, embarrassed and undone by a staggering and costly display of ineptitude at the plate.
Alex Rodriguez, with 647 career home runs and a $29 million salary for the 2012 season, managed a single hit against Detroit, and then was unceremoniously benched as the Tigers ran off four straight victories. Robinson Cano, widely regarded as one of the most talented players in baseball, endured an 0-for-29 streak that now stands as a major league record for postseason failure, and batted just .075 in the playoffs.
The Yankees, who led the major leagues in home runs during the regular season with 245, failed to score a single run in 20 straight innings against Detroit, scored in just 3 of 39 innings over all and never had a lead in any of the four games. The same offense that produced the second-most runs (804) in baseball during the regular season could barely manage a bloop single as the Yankees suffered their first postseason sweep since 1980 and only the fifth in their mostly glorious 27-championship history.
But there was no glory this year. Their futility continued to the very end as they managed just two hits on Thursday while the Tigers pounded them, 8-1, to capture the American League Championship Series. The Yankees headed home trying to make sense of an almost unfathomable turn of events.
"It's certainly disappointing and hard to stomach how we played here and at the most important time of the year," General Manager Brian Cashman said. "We feel we let the fans down in New York, and each other at the same time."
The Yankees' offense actually began to collapse in the first round of the playoffs against Baltimore, but the team managed to survive thanks to the starting pitcher C. C. Sabathia, the team's ace, who provided a stalwart performance in the fifth and deciding game.
Against Detroit, the Yankees' hitters looked even more lost, and on Thursday afternoon, even Sabathia couldn't halt the unraveling. He was knocked out in the fourth inning, having surrendered 11 hits and 6 runs, with two of them coming on an emphatic home run by Miguel Cabrera, who just two weeks ago became baseball's first Triple Crown winner in 45 years.
As the game entered the final innings, the Yankees barely put up a fight while Tigers fans roared, "Sweep, sweep." And while Detroit now moves on to its first World Series since 2006, the Yankees head into an off-season that promises to be filled with significant, and perhaps controversial, changes to the team's roster.
October failures have become all too familiar to the Yankees and their fans. Even with a team payroll that is far larger than any other franchise's, they have now failed to win a championship in 11 of the last 12 seasons and they have been to the World Series in only three of those seasons. In addition, they have become the personal punching bag of the Tigers, who have ousted them from the playoffs three times in the past seven years.
Still, the 2012 postseason failure will now stand apart for the implosion that occurred so suddenly over the past week.
Rodriguez was humiliated, his expensive future with the team suddenly unclear. Derek Jeter broke his ankle in Game 1, the first time in his nearly two decades of brilliance that he missed games in the postseason, and in his absence, his teammates produced nothing. Curtis Granderson hit 43 home runs during the season and Nick Swisher knocked in 93 runs, but both were helpless for almost all of the postseason, with Granderson going 3 for 19 against Baltimore and 0 for 11 against Detroit. Like Rodriguez, they suffered the indignity of being yanked from the lineup.
"We didn't swing the bats," Manager Joe Girardi said. "It wasn't one guy. It was a bunch of guys. It's hard to win when you don't score runs."
This was a team that won 95 games during the regular season, more than any other club in the A.L., but the nine games they played in the postseason seemed to have little to do with what came before. Perhaps the Yankees, an aging team, grew exhausted from a tough September in which they had to hold off a pesky Orioles team in the battle for first place in the A.L. East. And maybe that weariness began to show when they played the Orioles again in the division series and then became an even bigger factor against Detroit.
But at least one player wasn't buying that assessment.
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