2005 Yankees

The 2005 New York Yankees won the AL East for the eighth straight year, and I'm still not sure how they pulled it off. The $208 million roster was supposed to avenge the 2004 ALCS nightmare with a rebuilt rotation -- Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright. Instead, the pitching fell apart by June, the team sat at .500 in July, and two guys nobody had ever heard of saved the whole thing. A-Rod put up an MVP season for the ages, Robinson Cano showed up from Columbus and never left, and Mo was untouchable in the ninth. And it still ended with a first-round exit in Anaheim. That's 2005.

The Offseason Fix That Wasn't

Brian Cashman went all-in on pitching after the 2004 collapse. He traded Javier Vazquez, Brad Halsey, Dioner Navarro, and $9 million to Arizona for Randy Johnson on December 30. He signed Carl Pavano to a 4-year, $39.95 million deal. (That contract still makes me flinch.) Jaret Wright came aboard as a free agent. On paper, the rotation was fixed. On the field, it was a disaster waiting to happen.

Tony Womack signed a 2-year, $4 million deal to play second base. He couldn't hit. More on that in a minute.

April: 9-14 and Sinking

The Yankees opened against the Red Sox with Johnson on the mound and promptly fell flat. By late April, the team was 9-14 and sitting 6.5 games back in the East. Wright hit the DL. Kevin Brown was fading. The one freakin' bright spot was A-Rod. On April 26, Rodriguez crushed three home runs and drove in 10 against Bartolo Colon -- the most RBIs by a Yankee since Tony Lazzeri's 11 on May 24, 1936.

Ten RBIs. In one game. Against the reigning Cy Young winner. That's not normal.

Cano Changes Everything

On May 3, the Yankees called up a 22-year-old second baseman from Triple-A Columbus to replace Womack. Robinson Cano's arrival didn't look like much at first -- he went 2-for-23 in his first seven games. Then the swing showed up. By September, he was hitting .297 with 14 homers and 62 RBIs, and the Womack experiment was a distant memory. The $4 million free agent got replaced by a kid making the league minimum. Sometimes baseball just works that way.

The Rotation Burns Down

Pavano made 17 starts before his shoulder gave out -- a stress fracture in his humerus, initially misdiagnosed as rotator cuff tendinitis. (This was just the appetizer. Pavano's entire Yankees tenure was a buffet of injuries and frustration.) Wright stayed on the DL. Brown was done. Johnson, at 41, won 17 games but gave up 32 home runs and wasn't the dominant force everyone expected. The most expensive pitching staff in baseball was in shambles.

The Cavalry Nobody Expected

This is where 2005 gets fun. Brian Cashman dug through the scrap heap and found two arms that changed the season.

Aaron Small, a 34-year-old career minor leaguer who'd bounced through six organizations, got called up from Columbus and went 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA. TEN AND OH. The guy didn't even strike people out -- 37 K in 15 appearances. He just located, mixed speeds, and refused to lose. Shawn Chacon came over from Colorado, where he'd been 1-7, and went 7-3 with a 2.85 ERA as a Yankee. The Small and Chacon rescue is one of the best underdog stories the franchise has produced this century.

On baseball's most expensive roster, two of the cheapest arms saved the season. I love this sport.

A-Rod: The Best Season Nobody Celebrates

Rodriguez hit .321 with 48 homers, 130 RBIs, and a 1.031 OPS. He broke Joe DiMaggio's franchise record for home runs by a right-handed hitter. He became the youngest player in MLB history to hit 400 career homers at 29 years old. He won his second AL MVP. And the whole thing gets overshadowed by what happened in October. That's the A-Rod experience in a sentence.

June's Wild Comeback

On June 21, the Yankees trailed Tampa Bay 10-2 and erupted for 13 runs in the eighth inning to win 20-11. Gary Sheffield hit two three-run bombs and drove in seven. Sheffield, A-Rod, and Matsui went back-to-back-to-back. You don't see 13-run innings very often. When you do, you remember them.

Giambi's Quiet Redemption

Jason Giambi hit .195 through 27 games. Then he hit .332 with 18 homers over his next 65 games and won AL Comeback Player of the Year. (Nobody talked about what he was "coming back" from, and everyone knew why nobody talked about it.) He finished with 32 homers and 87 RBIs. The transformation was real, even if the reasons behind his initial decline stayed conveniently vague.

Winning the East by a Whisker

The Yankees and Red Sox both finished 95-67. The Yanks won the division on the strength of their 10-9 season-series tiebreaker. Eight straight division titles. But this one required Small, Chacon, and an MVP carrying the lineup on his back for six months.

The Angels End It

The ALDS against Anaheim started great. Cano ripped a bases-clearing double off Colon in Game 1 -- the rookie showing up on the big stage. Mussina was sharp. Mo closed. Yankees won 4-2.

Then it fell apart. Game 2: errors by A-Rod and Wang, 5-3 loss. Game 3: Johnson got shelled at the Stadium -- Garret Anderson hit a three-run shot in the first, Bengie Molina added a two-run homer in the third. The Big Unit was pulled in the fourth to boos. Angels won 11-7. Chacon kept the team alive in Game 4 with a gutsy 3-2 win.

Game 5 was the killer. Jeter singled to open the ninth with the Yanks trailing 5-3. A-Rod grounded into a double play. Giambi and Sheffield singled after that, but Matsui grounded out to end the series. The MVP's season ended on a ground ball into the shift.

Another October exit. Another round of "what now?" from the Bronx.

What Stayed

Cano and Chien-Ming Wang (8-5, 4.02 ERA in 18 games) gave the franchise something it hadn't had in a while -- real homegrown hope. Bernie moved into a part-time role. Posada kept catching. Mo kept closing. The core was aging, but the kids gave you a reason to believe the next chapter wouldn't require a $200 million Band-Aid every winter.

The Yanks wouldn't get back to the World Series until 2009. But 2005 planted some of the seeds that got them there.

Key Moments

Frequently Asked Questions

Did the Yankees win the 2005 World Series?

No. The Yankees lost to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the ALDS, 3 games to 2. They won the AL East with a 95-67 record but couldn't get past the first round. The Angels went on to lose to the White Sox, who swept the Astros for the championship.

Who won the 2005 AL MVP?

Alex Rodriguez won his second career AL MVP award after hitting .321 with 48 home runs, 130 RBI, and a 1.031 OPS. He led the American League in home runs and broke Joe DiMaggio's franchise record for homers by a right-handed hitter.

What was Aaron Small's record with the 2005 Yankees?

Aaron Small went 10-0 with a 3.20 ERA in 15 appearances after being called up from Triple-A Columbus. The 34-year-old career minor leaguer stabilized a rotation that had lost Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and Kevin Brown to injuries and ineffectiveness.

When did Robinson Cano debut for the Yankees?

Cano was called up from Triple-A Columbus on May 3, 2005, to replace struggling free-agent signing Tony Womack at second base. He hit .297 with 14 HR and 62 RBI in 132 games and finished second in AL Rookie of the Year voting behind Oakland's Huston Street.