The Yankees Swept Boston Without Aaron Judge. That's A Different Kind Of Story

Aaron Judge spent the Yankees' wild-card series in a hoodie, watching from the dugout. New York won 9-0 and 9-2, outscored Boston 18-2, outhit the Red Sox 26-7, and never trailed in either game.

The Yankees finished the regular season 93-68, second in the AL East and 4.5 games behind Tampa Bay. The story most people will write is that the Red Sox collapsed. The more interesting one is that a lineup missing a three-time MVP barely noticed.

A calf strain and a very busy roster

Judge was left off the 26-man wild-card roster because of a moderate right calf strain suffered September 16, his seventh game back from a rib fracture that cost him most of the summer. Giancarlo Stanton was on the roster but never got a plate appearance. Gerrit Cole didn't start either.

So the Yankees played the biggest series of their season without their captain, one of their biggest sluggers and their longtime ace. If you'd offered that lineup card in April, most fans would have asked for a refund.

Instead, Ben Rice drove in six runs in Game 1 on four hits, including a grand slam, tying a Yankees postseason record. Cam Schlittler threw 117 pitches in a shutout-style effort, and Max Fried followed with six innings and one run in Game 2. In the sixth inning of that game, ten Yankees came to the plate and six of them scored.

The homegrown group did the heavy lifting

The best detail came from Yahoo Sports. The five homegrown position players who started in either game, Rice, Spencer Jones, George Lombard Jr., Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe, combined to go 15-for-34, a .441 average, with 11 runs and 11 RBI.

That's the interesting part of the depth argument. Depth gets talked about as a cushion of aging veterans waiting for a chance. This was a group of drafted-and-developed players, several of them still young, carrying a postseason series on their backs while the stars sat out.

Wells had struggled against left-handers all season, then knocked in the first run of the series against lefty Payton Tolle. Rice and Schlittler even have New England roots, which means two kids who grew up around the team they just buried got to do the burying.

The caveat, because every argument needs one

Fairness requires a footnote. The Red Sox had the worst-hitting September in baseball at .219 and carried that malaise into October, scoring twice in 18 innings and collecting seven hits, none with a runner on. Beating a cold team doesn't prove you'd beat a hot one.

The Yankees also used little of their bullpen in the round and got two full days off before the trip south. That rest is the kind of luck that comes with sweeping. Any team that wins in two games earns a small gift from the calendar.

Still, I think the lesson about depth survives the caveat. When a team can lose its best hitter and nothing in the lineup bends, that's a structural advantage. It also changes how opponents plan, because a pitcher can't build his whole night around one at-bat.

Judge's status for the ALDS against Tampa Bay remains unresolved, and Boone has said the extra days will help decide whether he's ready. Here's the question that follows. In a short series, is a deep lineup worth more than a superstar who might be missing, or does October still belong to whoever has the best player on the field?