Yankees are in this weird place right now. They are the Yankees which means they have the resources to spend a ton of money to get top tier talent. Their fans demand it. But the owner CLEARLY doesn’t care about baseball and I suspect hates it (due to his father’s obvious obsession over it) and sees the team as a revenue generator above all else. So they don’t go the extra mile to put the team over the top. Aaron Boone is not a champion tier manager. He doesn’t care about the details and little things you need to do. In the end that’s what lost this series for them.
Dodgers were beatable. Mets took them to six with a collapsed pitching staff and much less hitting talent. Yankees have the talent to do it. AJ Hinch or Bruce Bochy would have taken this team all the way. But they won’t go and sign a guy like that. And it is why they can easily beat up on poverty franchises in the AL Central and then get mowed down facing real competition.