Aaron Judge's playoff nightmare is made worse by another person disappearing

There were signs of progress in the eighth part when Aaron Judge was more disciplined.

Against Ryan Brasier, he swung through two borderline throws and the crowd grew dissatisfied, ready to boo the Yankees captain with another whiff.

But Judge hit three straight sliders that slipped out of the zone and reached base on a walk that showed the process could improve.

But “process” refers to April, May and June. In October, it's the results that matter, and Judge hasn't found nearly enough.

Perhaps his approach improved Monday, but he reached base once in four plate appearances. Judge appeared 13 times in the World Series.

He returned to the dugout eleven times unhappily. Seven of those times were strikeouts in a series in which he hit .083.

The best hitter in at least the American League and perhaps even the world has stopped hitting in the games that mean the most to him and has a single hit in three of the most disappointing games of the club's season.

Judge remained quiet again in Monday's 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in the Bronx, which handed the Yankees a 3-0 loss, which marked not only a series loss but a series embarrassment.

The Yankees have scored seven runs in three games, and their offensive ineptitude begins with their strongest bat. If Judge doesn't wake up, severe slumps would end his 2024 and cast a shadow over one of the greatest offensive seasons the baseball world has seen between those slumps.

Judge had four more chances in Game 3 and missed three of them.

He stepped to the plate in the first inning with Gleyber Torres at first base and left him there.

With a sellout crowd on its feet trying to snap Judge out of this commotion by shouting for the club's captain and chanting “MVP,” Judge again became uncharacteristically impatient and blasted a Walker Buehler cutter off the plate for strike three.

He saw just one more pitch from Buehler, a knuckle curve to center plate in the fourth, and was thrown out.

Judge had another chance in the sixth with a runner on base (Giancarlo Stanton on first), but Brusdar Graterol's fireball prompted a weak comebacker that he knocked down and threw to second, where Tommy Edman made a nice one made a move to secure the lead.

On his last attempt, Judge drew a one-out walk, which was followed by strikeouts from Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr.

It's not that Judge fails, but that he fails in the biggest moments of the biggest games: This postseason, he's 3-for-22 (.136) with runners on base and 0-for-10 with six strikeouts with runners in scoring position. Overall, the presumptive AL MVP is 6-for-43 (.140) in 12 playoff games.

A historic regular season is followed by an empty postseason. Judge's 1.159 OPS is the best in baseball (as are his 58 home runs and 144 RBIs), making him the fourth player in MLB history to have multiple seasons with at least 58 hits.

He started slowly, posting just a .207 average and a .754 OPS in May before stringing together five of the best months a player could imagine.

But then October came and Judge didn't come.

Aaron Boone has committed to Judge staying at No. 3 for the rest of the series – but the rest of the series could consist of one more game since his No. 3 hitter doesn't hit.