In the end, the Yankees simply had no MUTE button

Last night, while it was fun to watch Rays' pretty boy Tyler Glasnow get whacked - (you imagined LA fans nationwide, Jeffrey Toobining in their living rooms) -  Tampa's inability to cap Dodger bats reminded me of just how tortuous this series would have been, had the Yankees made it. At least, we don't have to be humiliated by Mookie Betts. 

But another reason to be relieved is - well - our lack of relief.

Throughout the 2020 post-season, the Death Star never found one lights-out pitcher - a "MUTE" button, if you will - to silence the opposition. 

On our staff, only two marginal mopper-uppers - Michael King and Nick Nelson - threw 0.00 ERAs. (Each pitched two innings.) Our ace, Gerrit Cole, made three starts, 18.1 innings, overall - and surrendered  six earned runs. Cole gave us what he had. But in Game 7, on short rest, he couldn't pitch into the seventh. (Not his fault. If we could have - say - scored four runs, Cole might have gone the distance.  But we didn't... and he didn't... and here we are...) 

Neither our super-sweater closer, Aroldis Chapman, nor our chief set-up man Zack Britton pitched to their pay-grades. Both gave up earned runs - in el Chapo's case, a humdinger. Britton pitched 5.1 innings and gave up two earned runs - as did Mean Chad Green. 

Nobody stepped forward to throw a blanket on smoldering rallies. Nobody  came to raise blood pressures in the Rays dugout. And that, my friends, is the story of 2020: The vaunted Yankee bullpen, hailed in March as the game's best, never materialized. 

Tampa unveiled power arms with 100-mph heat, like the Chapman of old. But the "guns" of the Yankee pen - Ben Heller, Jonathan Loaisiga, Jonathan Holder, Adam Ottavino, Michael Yajure, Albert Abreu, Brooks Kriske - never produced a breakthrough. We spent the year bemoaning the loss of Tommy Kahnle, as if he were a top closer.  (Don't get me wrong: Losing Kahnle hurt, but on the bullpen, he was probably the fourth weapon, and every team in baseball lost somebody.) 

So, what about 2021? Well, add another year to Chapman, Britton, Ottavino and Green, and it's hard to imagine them improving. That means we head into another winter where Cooperstown Cashman will be in his usual element: trading off prospects - (Estevan Florial, Oswald Peraza) and former future Yankee stars - (Gary Sanchez, Miguel Andujar) -for a bullpen lug nut, whose best days might be behind him. 

Yeah, who wanted to be in that stupid world series, anyway? It's not a real season. They won't be real rings. A parade would only spread the virus. We're better off, sitting at home. Those grapes, they look sour.