The burning offseason questions for Yankees after another agonizing playoff tease

Instead of the season ending with sounds of champagne bottles popping in a raucous celebration, a familiar soundtrack played within the Yankees’ clubhouse late Wednesday night: packing tape breaking up the silence as players filled boxes with their belongings while others tried to explain away another October disappointment.

Concrete answers for why the Yankees fell short of their ultimate goal for a 16th straight year were not easy to come by – other than the Blue Jays simply beating them in all facets of the game throughout the ALDS.

The teams needed a tiebreaker to determine the AL East during the regular season, after both finished with 94 wins, but there was no question who was the better team in October.

“Once again, it comes down to the little things,” Aaron Judge said. “Making the little plays, coming up with the big hit. You don’t do that, give teams extra outs, they’re going to capitalize on it. What a season for the Blue Jays. Doing their thing, winning the division, winning the (division series). For us, we got to clean a couple things up and we’ll be right back here.”