 Welcome back to Yankees Magazine. Whenever a baseball team loses in the postseason, the ending is abrupt and harsh, like a snowball to the face, or, more specifically, like a baseball cruelly soaring and disappearing. A Jose Altuve Homer, often a oldest Chapman hanging slider, being the difference in one team dying and one team dancing into the World Series. The Yankees believed they were built to win a title, and in this injury-ravaged, next-man-up season, they often resembled the championship team. But the Astros, New York's nemesis for three of the last five October's, were simply built better, and more importantly, they performed better in this titanic ALCS. Across six tense games, the Astros were superior, and while Garrett Cole and Justin Verlander rightfully received a ton of hype before and during the series, Houston's bullpen proved to be just as valuable. The Yankee blueprint was to ride their vaunted relievers to the World Series, but Zach Britton, one of those precious arms, said, starters are still the way to go and trying to win it all. What made this series especially agonizing for the Yankees is the fact that they were accessible paths to a victory in three of their four losses. After winning the opener, the Yankees outlasted Verlander and turned Game 2 into a bullpen battle. That's a game they needed to win, because their bullpen, which was rested throughout September, was supposed to be a defining weapon. Instead, they lost on Carlos Correa's walk-off homer against Jay Hatt. The Yankees challenged Cole in Game 3 and had nine baser-runners through five innings and scored nothing. How might that game have changed if they had one or two timely hits? And finally, after DJ Lamehu's memorable game tying, two-run homer in the ninth inning in Game 6, the Yankees gave the ball to Chapman. It should have been Advantage Yankees, but Chapman made a poor pitch to a great hitter, forgetting there was a 227 hitter on deck. Season over, instant depression filling Yankeeland. As the off-season unfolds, the Yankees will decide how to make improvements as they try to leap over the Astros, their October roadblock, pursuing Cole, a free agent to be, who is the best pitcher on the planet, must be a priority. If we were in a fantasy world, the Yankees would clone Lamehu, who was the perfect addition in this strikeout-laden lineup. While Lamehu and Gleiber Torres combined to hit 325 with six of the Yankees' 15 homers in the playoffs, the rest of the team hit 211. Yes, the Yankees should chase Cole, but we must remember that their offense stalled against Houston. There will be more post-season moments for the Yankees because they are too talented and too smart to become October spectators. Manager Aaron Boone believes the Yankees will soon reach the championship mountaintop with battle scores from this recent series on them. Maybe he's right, but for now, that's a faraway thought. Because the pain from losing is still raw, those snowballs are still hitting them in the face.