NEW YORK -- For all the attention that has been directed at Aaron Judge¡¯s conspicuously absent production this postseason, the increasingly harsh spotlight on the Yankees captain was certainly not reflected in the reception given to him by a packed Yankee Stadium crowd before Game 3 of the World Series on Monday night.

The Bronx faithful seemed to know that just about any path for the Yankees to fight their way back from what¡¯s now a daunting 3-0 deficit in this Series has to go through No. 99, and the loudest roars of the night and spirited chants of ¡°M-V-P¡± thundered as he stepped to the plate, as though urging Judge to remember his true identity.

Once again, he did not -- and following another quiet night from Judge and the Yankees¡¯ offense in a 4-2 defeat to the Dodgers, they are on the cusp of the end to their season, with the face of the franchise acknowledging that he has been letting teammates down.

¡°Yeah, definitely,¡± Judge said. ¡°You want to be getting the hits. You want to be going out there, doing your job. I'm not doing my job right now. I've got to pick it up.¡±

An 0-for-3 performance with a walk left Judge without a multihit performance in 12 games this October -- and this is coming off a monstrous regular season during which he hit .322/.457/.701 with 58 homers.

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In contrast, Judge is now 6-for-43 (.140) this postseason, with 20 strikeouts and two double-play grounders in 54 plate appearances. In 56 career playoff games, he¡¯s now hitting .196/.302/.430 for a .732 OPS. Judge and Reggie Sanders remain the only hitters in AL/NL history to hit under .200 in more than 200 postseason at-bats.

And the four plate appearances on Monday were a microcosm of his struggles.

Plate appearance 1: Strikeout swinging
The takeaway: He¡¯s expanding, then struggling with two strikes.

Amid Judge¡¯s talk of needing to be more disciplined with his strike zone, it¡¯s worth noting that his approach isn¡¯t fully broken. He swung at pitches one, four and six this at-bat -- the fastballs -- and took the three breaking balls. Pitch type recognition-wise, that is what he wants.

An early count monster during the regular season, these deep counts to Judge have exposed the natural swing-and-miss in his game in a big way, and while he was fairly good at protecting the plate with two strikes during the regular season (28.3% whiff rate), that has ballooned to a full 45% whiff rate with two strikes in the postseason.

But Judge is getting to two strikes because, as he¡¯s pointed out, he¡¯s just swinging more, and he¡¯s expanding to get there (see: pitch four). A chase rate that was a fantastic 18.7% during the regular season is way up to 28.7% in the playoffs, and up to 34.8% in the World Series.

¡°At times, you want to make things happen instead of letting the game come to you,¡± Judge said.

Here¡¯s the thing, though: When it comes to two strikes, it¡¯s not the pitches out of the zone that have been the most concerning issue (though it was in this case). Here¡¯s what his strikeout pitches have looked like this postseason:

Which leads us to our next point¡­

Plate appearance 2: Flyout to left
The takeaway: Non-fastballs have been a massive weakness.

Notice all of the strikeout pitches in the zone from earlier? Look at all of that swing-and-miss on offspeed stuff in hittable spots for a guy who did plenty of damage on non-fastballs during the regular season.

That brings us to his second plate appearance.

Walker Buehler left a first-pitch curveball about as middle-middle as it can get. Instead of mashing it to Yonkers, Judge lifted a lazy flyout to left.

¡°If you get that one out of the park, things change,¡± Judge said.

That illustrates the crux of the issue: Offspeed and breaking pitches have been a disaster for Judge this postseason. He whiffed at 41.4% of them in the regular season; that¡¯s up to a whopping 60.7% whiff rate in the playoffs, including a 10% bump in missing offspeed pitches in the strike zone (as evidenced by that strikeout chart).

And when he does make contact, the contact has been bad: Of the 55 such pitches he¡¯s put in play this October, only one has been a hit -- an infield single.

This makes sense -- offspeed pitches are better in the playoffs, because the best pitchers from the best teams are pitching all the time. But the league-wide whiff rate on non-fastballs jumped from only 32.3% in the regular season to 36.2% in the postseason -- as contrasted with Judge¡¯s leap.

Plate appearance 3: Forceout
The takeaway: He¡¯s not hitting the fastballs, either.

About that ¡°better pitching¡± thing -- the guys facing Judge this postseason have executed, for the most part, and that¡¯s what we saw in this plate appearance, where Brusdar Graterol got a sinker in on Judge¡¯s hands to force a chopper back to the mound.

Look at how Judge did against fastballs in the regular season, and there is room to attack him in there:

If you¡¯re going to throw Judge a fastball, try not to leave it down or in. Pitchers have executed that for the most part, and even when Judge does get the increasingly rare fastball, he¡¯s just not doing damage. Of his 61 swings on fastballs in the zone this postseason ¡­ five have turned into hits.

Graterol attacked him up and in -- and was rewarded for it.

Plate appearance 4: Walk
The takeaway: Patience is key¡­ but is it too little, too late?

Judge did reach base in this final plate appearance, successfully laying off three consecutive sliders off the plate (pitches four, five and six) -- but that pushes the onus on to his teammates, of which Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton have been the only meaningful power players this offseason.

¡°You want to try to make something happen, but if you're not going to get a pitch in the zone, you've got to just take your walks and set up for [Stanton],¡± Judge said.

Judge has pointed to his plate discipline and not necessarily mechanical reasons for his malaise, and there will be plenty of time to dissect the ¡°why¡± in due time, but here¡¯s the thing: Can the Yankees mount a comeback if a more patient Judge works more walks?

¡°I didn't get any hits. Didn't drive anybody in,¡± Judge said of his Game 3.

Patience might not help much with those things, especially if the Dodgers are simply willing to let Judge take his walks.