David Lennon: Yankees came up short again, but at least they can believe in a new group of "Baby Bombers"

Remember the original “Baby Bombers”?

Aaron Judge does. He was one of them.

The Yankees’ NextGen core was supposed to anchor multiple championship teams after crashing the postseason party in 2017, putting together a surprising October run that ended with a seven-game ALCS loss to the cheating Astros.

Judge, Gary Sanchez, Greg Bird and Luis Severino were supposed to be the main pillars along with Gleyber Torres, Miguel Andujar and even Clint Frazier, he of the “legendary bat speed,” as described by general manager Brian Cashman.

Nine years later, Judge is the last one still wearing pinstripes, and at age 34, he’s officially going through his midlife crisis, from a baseball perspective.

They grow up so fast, and it’s hard to believe, despite so much promise, that those Baby Bombers wound up bolting the Bronx before delivering at least one championship, never mind the kind of dynasty the iconic Core Four — Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera — plus Bernie Williams did nearly two decades before their arrival.

We bring all this up now, amid the fallout from the past week’s humbling ALDS sweep by the Rays, to highlight one promising development. That would be another batch of “Baby Bombers” — relatively speaking, maybe closer to pinstriped tweens — and this one should stick for a while.

Call it a rebirth in the Bronx, and based on how they performed down the stretch, along with the maturity they showed in October, there’s reason to believe they eventually could secure that elusive championship No. 28.

Odds are there’s not going to be another Judge. Three-time MVPs come around once a generation, and he’s only the 13th in MLB history. But Cam Schlitter (age 25) is going to win the American League Cy Young Award in his second season, Ben Rice (27) should finish among the top five for MVP, George Lombard Jr. (21) is giving off early A-Rod vibes three months in, Spencer Jones (25) is a tailor-made Bronx slugger who improves by the day, and comeback kid Anthony Volpe (25) returned as a cult hero, most likely cementing a spot for the future. Austin Wells (27) and Will Warren (27) deserve honorable mention, too.

“There always are really good takeaways in these seasons and the ending,” said manager Aaron Boone, who presided over the first round of Baby Bombers when he came on board in 2018. “And one of the story lines for us is the emergence of some really good young players and promising young players. We’ve got probably four or five, six guys that are 25 and under that you can see having not only starring roles but integral roles on the team moving forward. And that’s exciting.”

Schlitter and Rice stand out for carrying the Yankees throughout this Judge-less season. Jones and Lombard provided timely boosts with their major-league debuts.

Volpe’s Yankees career figured to be over when he was twice demoted to Triple-A Scranton/ Wilkes-Barre after being the starting shortstop the previous three years. Instead, he reinvented himself as a second baseman and made three starts in the playoffs, nearly hitting an October-saving tying two-run blast in the sixth inning of Game 3. Because of fan interference, it wound up being an RBI double, but Volpe’s impact and his big-game rep were not diminished by replay review, even if his bid for a home run was.

“If we’re going to go and win a World Series, we need Anthony Volpe,” Judge said after Wednesday night’s Game 3 loss. “An incredible player. Not only the talent he is, but to handle that type of adversity — not only from the game, not playing your best, but hearing it from fans, hearing it from everybody. Then for him to go down to Triple-A, work on what he needed to and then come up with a bang like he did.

“It just speaks volumes to his character. The type of grit he has, and resilience. That’s a guy I want up in a big spot. I know he’s prepared. I know he’s ready, and he almost had a nice homer there.”

Schlittler (1.95 ERA, 7.0 bWAR) leapfrogged Gerrit Cole and Max Fried into the role of Yankees ace during the regular season, then dominated the Red Sox — again — in the Wild Card Series, allowing two hits and striking out 10 in 6 1⁄3 innings in the 9-0 Game 1 victory. If not for the Yankees’ embarrassing glovework during his ALDS start, which forced Schlittler to repeatedly bail them out before he tired in the fifth, who knows how Game 2 might have unfolded.

What the Yankees should know by now is that Schlittler has the No. 1 mentality to match his Cy Young Award-caliber skills along with the competitive fire that can stoke an entire clubhouse. Even when he wins, he never looks satisfied, and being sent home for a second straight year in the ALDS just made him angrier.

“We didn’t meet the expectations of the fans and this organization,” he said. “There’s a certain standard of being a Yankee and we didn’t fulfill that. We have all the pieces to succeed and win a championship, but at the end of the day, that’s not what we did this series . . . I’ve got to go back to work and run into the offseason with a bit of a chip on my shoulder.”

Rice polished off a 41-homer, 97-RBI regular season by doing all of the heavy lifting in October. In five playoff games, he batted .421 (8-for-19) with four homers, nine RBIs and a 1.605 OPS. The rest of the Yankees hit a combined .213 with two home runs and 13 RBIs, but those numbers dropped to .110, zero and two for the ALDS.

There wasn’t much more Rice could have done. “They outplayed us, plain and simple,” he said.

And now it’s up to these Baby Bombers to carry the torch. Saddled with a 17-year championship drought makes them the generation of unfinished business.

“This is my fourth season. It’s been four too many times having this taste in your mouth,” Volpe said. “At this point, I don’t even think motivated is the right word. I think it’s just [ticked] off. There’s too many chips added to your shoulder that it feels like enough’s enough.”

These “babies” are cranky. And that’s a good thing for the Yankees.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.