Yankees History: Winning streak sandwich losses
Yesterday at 10:00 AM
Sometimes a long win streak is just a couple plays away from being even longer.
Back in 2021, the Yankees went on a late summer 13-game winning streak, helping them snag a playoff spot amid an otherwise disappointing season. As that streak started to get into double digits, there started to be people around the internet tracking the streak among the longest in both Yankees and baseball history. In the end, the 2021 Yankees fell six games short of the franchise record 19 set by the 1947 squad.
Throughout history, there are instances where if one game had flipped, there could've been a winning streak to rival that 1947 one. Even in '47, the Yankees loss in the game right before the 19-game run was a 5-1 loss to the Washington Senators where the offense left seven runners on base. The Yankees had won the two games prior to that, meaning they were a more efficient offensive day away from a 22-game streak, which would be in a tie with 2017 Cleveland for the longest in AL history.
As we continue our trek through the offseason, let's take a look at some instance of one singular game keeping the Yankees from some other very long winning streaks.
The pre-Babe Ruth Yankees, especially the Highlanders years before the name change, are pretty notorious for not being that great. However, there were occasional seasons here and there where they were good, including 1906, when they finished second in the AL.
From August 29th through September 8th, the 1906 Highlanders won 15 straight games, which was a franchise record until the 1926 team won 16 in a row. The day preceding the beginning of that streak, the future Yankees fell 3-1 to the St. Louis Browns. Much like in the aforementioned 1947 game, this was a day where a better day from the offense may have flipped things. The Highlanders recorded seven hits in the day, but they couldn't plate any runs following a Kid Elberfeld RBI single in the first inning.
However had they managed something else, then their winning streak may have gone down as a franchise record that still held today. Prior to that loss to the Browns, New York had won four in a row: add that Browns game and then the 15-game winning streak, and they weren't all that far away from winning 20 straight. Maybe if they had done that, they could've rode the momentum a little more, as instead they went 13-13 after the winning streak and fell a couple games short of first in the AL.
The 1941 Yankees could've beat the team from six years later to the 19-game punch were it not for a bad couple of late innings on June 27th. That day, the Yankees were trailing by two going into the top of the ninth, after Frankie Hayes had give the Philadelphia Athletics an insurance run with an eighth inning homer.
The Yankees then rallied in the ninth, scoring two runs to tie things up. One run even came courtesy of a Red Ruffing RBI double — a pitcher who was sent up as a pinch hitter as he was one of the best hitting ones ever. They maybe should've let Ruffing pitch too, as instead Norm Branch came in and allowed two hits, and a game-winning double to Dick Siebert in the bottom of the ninth. Immediately prior to that loss, the '41 Yanks had taken the previous four games. Immediately after it, they won their next 14, meaning they could've gone 19 in a row were it not for the late runs allowed to the A's.
If you want a better example of a true sandwich, you can go back to the 1939 Yankees. From May 9th through the 23rd they took 12 straight games, before losing to the Tigers on the 24th. While not as long as the one before the loss, the Bombers then went on another streak, taking six in a row. If you do the math, that's 19 in a row once again. As a bonus, after that streak was snapped, they then won another five in a row, meaning they went on a 23-2 run and were just a couple sequences away from a 25-game streak.
There are plenty of other examples of this from Yankees history. Beyond that, there's no way of knowing if the butterfly effect of turning one of those streak-breaking losses into a win flips a different result down the line. However, it's still pretty fun to look at the handful of games or plays that can keep a streak from being talked about for years and years.