The New York Yankees are the most storied franchise in Major League Baseball history, with 27 World Series Championships. They were the team that every year, you just expected to be in the Playoffs, and have a good chance of winning the World Series, almost the Golden State Warriors in today’s NBA.

However, that has changed the last seven to eight years for the Yankees, with their last World Series Championship being in 2009. As weird as it sounded to say, and even more strange to watch, the New York Yankees were rebuilding. All of the stars that we had seen win so many games were getting old and retiring, and the Yankees had to start rebuilding their team.

This was one of the quicker rebuilds, thinking that it took under ten years, it just seemed like a long one because of the greatness Yankees fans were used to, and simply because it was in New York.

Last season, the young stars (Gary Sanchez and Aaron Judge) showed up for about the last month of the season in the major leagues. The way they performed had Yankee fans extremely excited for this year, and the years to come.

Those younger stars, as well as more veteran players like Matt Holliday, Brett Gardner, and the late addition of Todd Frazier in a trade, were expected to have the perfect amount of experience and young talent to start winning some games again in New York. These position players combined with their deadly bullpen was sure to see more wins than in the past years.

Everyone expected that, an improving year seeing more wins and the Yankees to begin trending in the right direction towards playoffs. Not many saw what the Yankees actually did in this 2017 coming.

The Yankees won 91 games and were only two games short of winning the American League East, just behind the Boston Red Sox. With those 91 wins, they earned the ability to host the American League Wild Card game.

The Wild Card game is a loser go home scenario, where the winner moves on to the League Divisional Series in the playoffs. The Yankees hosted the Minnesota Twins and in an unusual game where both starters did not last more than three innings. It was a high-scoring game that saw the Yankees win 8-4. This meant that the Yankees would move on to face the Cleveland Indians, the number one seed in the American League.

The Divisional Series is a best of five series, so the first team to win three games moves on to the Championship Series. The Cleveland Indians won both game one and game two in Cleveland, to take a commanding 2-0 lead. They needed just one more win in order to clinch the Divisional Series and move on, but they were heading to New York, where the Yankees feed off of their crowd’s energy and play much better than they do on the road.

The New York Yankees, with their backs against the wall, won both games three and four to even the series at two apiece. This would again send the series back to Cleveland in a winner take all situation. The New York Yankees were on a roll and figured out a way to beat the one seed Cleveland Indians in Cleveland, coming back from down 2-0, and sending them to Houston for the American League Championship Series.

The Championship Series is a little bit different from the Divisional Series in that it is a best of seven series instead of five. Also, the winner of the Championship Series heads to the World Series. With the first two games being in Houston because they were the higher seed (2), the Yankees had to try to find a way to win on the road again like they did in game five against Cleveland.

They ended up losing two heartbreakers where they could not hit the two Astro aces and found themselves going back to New York down 2-0 in the series yet again. It was familiar territory for the Yankees, so nobody was stressing out too hard, but nobody wants to be in that position either. The Yankees have found a way to win both of the first two games in New York, game two in comeback fashion and have evened the series 2-2.

With one more game in New York before the series heads back to Houston and the Astros aces that couldn’t be touched in games one and two back on the mound, can the Yankees find a way to win? Can they be a Wild Card team that goes all the way to the World Series beating the one and two seeds even though they started both series down 2-0? It will be interesting to find out how the Yankees go about facing the Astros pitchers that completely shut them down, and if they can keep the ball rolling now, like they did against Cleveland.