The Yankees held an enormous lead as the fifth inning began on Wednesday night and then the fundamental lapses that had, at times, afflicted them during the regular season swept through Game 5 and tilted it irrevocably.
Even though the Yanks later re-took the lead after squandering an early 5-0 advantage, pinstriped mistakes gave the Dodgers life they took all the way to the win that finished off a World Series title.
So what happened? After the Yankees’ 7-6 loss, those involved talked in a somber clubhouse about what went so wrong at the end of a season that went all the way to the Fall Classic.
Judge’s first error
Aaron Judge had not bungled a ball in the outfield all year and he’d made a sensational leaping catch to steal at least a double from Freddie Freeman in the fourth inning. But, an inning later, he did not catch Tommy Edman’s fly to center with a man on first and nobody out.
Judge said the ball didn’t knuckle or do anything weird, and there was no problem with lights or wind.
“I just didn’t make the play,” he said.
Said Aaron Boone: “It looked like, just kind of that sinking liner that Judgey missed.”
It put runners on first and second, the seeds of a rally, and set up the next gaffe.
Volpe’s poor throw
Will Smith hit a grounder to Volpe’s right at shortstop and he tried to cut down the lead runner at third, but he made a poor throw that Jazz Chisholm could not handle. Volpe was charged with a throwing error and the bases were loaded.
“The play to Volpe, the right move obviously going to third, a little bit of a short hop over there to third, didn’t complete the play,” Boone said.
Chisholm said he did not believe it was a difficult play. “Just got to catch it and step on third base,” he said. He added: “I just feel like it was a big runner (Kiké Hernández) just coming in at the same time.”
Chisholm also added this: “Baseball, sometimes you could blink for one second and everything could be gone. For us, we were still going into it, trying to attack and trying to go at it.”
Dodgers star Freddie Freeman had a different view:
“I know they gave Volpe an error on that play,” he said. “But if you slow it down and you see how Kiké ran to third base, that’s what set up that play. Him having an unbelievable base-running IQ there, and just to capitalize. You’ve got to get the big hits in the big situations, and we were able to do that in that inning.”
The squibber to first
With nobody out and the bases loaded, Gerrit Cole took matters into his own hands, striking out both Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani to inch close to squashing the Dodgers’ chance. But then Mookie Betts hit a ball off the end of his bat and it spun toward first. The Yankees should’ve been able to get an out on the play, but did not, and the Dodgers’ first run scored.
Cole did not cover first and Rizzo could not get to the base ahead of Betts.
“Mookie hits a squibber so Rizz couldn’t really run through it,” Boone said. “He kind of had to stay there and make sure he secured the catch because of the spin on the ball. And I think Gerrit just — all that he went through in that inning, kind of spent and kind of almost working his way out of it, just didn’t react quick enough to get over.”
Said Cole: “I think I took a bad angle to the ball. I wasn’t sure, really off the bat, how hard he hit it. I took a direct angle to it, as if to cut it off, because, just, I just didn’t know how hard he hit it. By the time the ball got by me, I was not in a position to cover first.
“I guess my angle should be a little more aggressive to first base to give myself a chance to continue through the bag.”
Rizzo called it a “miscommunication on coverage” and added:
“Those cappers are the hardest balls for us…I kind of was going for, and then it kicked one way, so I had to really make sure to catch it first,” he said. “Pitchers are always taught to get over no matter what. Just a weird, spinning play that I had to really make sure to get and I think even to go to first would have been, I don’t know if I would have gotten him.”
The aftermath
Following all that, Freeman, who would later be named World Series MVP, came to the plate and lined a two-run single into center. It gave him 12 RBI in the Series, matching the record for a single Fall Classic set by Bobby Richardson of the Yankees in 1960. Teoscar Hernández followed by hammering a two-run double to center and the score was tied at 5.
The Yankees re-took the lead an inning later, but could not hold that one, either.
“We just didn’t take care of the ball well enough in that inning,” Boone said. “Against a great team like that, they took advantage.”
“You can’t give a good team like that extra outs,” added Judge. “So it starts with me there on the line drive.”
A larger issue?
Poor fundamentals plagued the Yankees during the regular season – their base-running metrics are not good and they made the seventh-most errors in the Major Leagues and the second-most of any team that made the playoffs.
Later in Game 5, Austin Wells was called for catcher’s interference, prolonging the Dodgers’ rally in the eighth – they scored the go-ahead run right afterward – and Luke Weaver was called for a balk after three disengagements from the mound rubber in the ninth.
Even Judge noted, when asked about technique during the season, “I could go back to a couple of games in the postseason where it was a base-running mistake or, like I said, you give a team extra outs. They’re gonna capitalize on it.”
In the end, that’s exactly what happened in the Yankees’ last game of the season. And the chance to seize upon Yankee mistakes was not lost on Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
“Just didn’t make a play right there,” Roberts said of the Judge misplay. “We just got a break covering first base, so we got a couple of extra outs.
“It’s just good when you give a good team extra outs. It was great for us to take advantage of it.”