NEW YORK – They waited 15 years to reach baseball’s biggest stage, only to shrink in the biggest moments.
They pride themselves on developing and importing players tough enough for the game’s biggest market – only to get exposed, themselves, when it mattered most.
And when the New York Yankees scattered for the winter on Wednesday night, they did so with the most bittersweet taste one could imagine: That they lost this World Series by playing far below their capabilities.
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The Yankees didn’t want to go out like that but boy, did they ever. Let’s be clear: The Los Angeles Dodgers were by far the superior team, a fact borne out by their 4-1 conquest of the Yankees in this World Series.
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But in blowing a five-run lead in the fifth inning of the decisive Game 5 before losing, 7-6, and failing to ever grasp the upper hand over the Dodgers thanks in large part to self-inflicted wounds, the Yankees showed they’re not quite ready for this most prime time stage.
And so the battle of super teams went to World Series MVP Freddie Freeman and three-time champion Mookie Betts, to one-year import Teoscar Hernandez and the relentlessly clutch Kiké Hernandez, all contributing mightily to the Series-clinching win in manners huge and small.
The Yankees? They dropped a routine fly ball, flubbed a force play, failed to cover first – all in one inning – and in messing up both Games 1 and 5 blew a strong chance at their first championship since 2009.
“I think falling short in the World Series will stay with me until I die,” says franchise player Aaron Judge, whose Game 5 was a journey in itself: A two-run homer to snap a lingering slump and put them ahead in the first inning, a startling catch against the wall in left center field to rob Freeman – but then muffing a routine fly ball to pour kerosene on a five-run rally.
“Just like every other loss, those things don’t go away. There are battle scars along the way. Hopefully when my career is over there are battle scars, but also a lot of victories along the way.”
The wound opened by that fifth inning might take a while to scab over.
It started when Kiké Hernandez cracked a leadoff single off Gerrit Cole, breaking up his no-hitter. Tommy Edman then lofted a fly to center that Judge came in on, reached down and snatched at. Perhaps he looked up too soon. Either way, the ball bounced off his glove.
And a Yankee team leading 5-0 suddenly felt extremely vulnerable against the mighty Dodgers.
What happened next could partially be described as “That’s baseball” moments, but not entirely.
With two on, Will Smith hit a grounder into the hole at shortstop. Anthony Volpe’s best shot at an out was to throw to third. But Hernandez provided a distraction in the basepaths. Volpe bounced the ball to third.
Jazz Chisholm could not scoop it. Bad throw, and no help on the other end.
Bases loaded.
Cole – who manager Aaron Boone said was “really brilliant” – nearly punched out of it, striking out No. 9 hitter Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. Betts then topped a ball down the first base line.
It rolled toward the bag, spun back toward the infield, zigged and zagged in a manner a ball does when struck awkwardly. First baseman Anthony Rizzo had little choice but to freeze and let the spinning orb settle down.
Yet Cole – by now halfway through a grueling 38-pitch inning – failed to get off the mound and cover first. Betts dashed down the line. And earned the strangest RBI single.
“I think Gerrit – 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,” says Boone. “Because of the spin, Rizz had to make sure you kind of secure it.
“It’s hard to run through that ball that’s spinning like that.”
And then the Dodgers pounced.
Freeman lashed a two-run single. Teoscar Hernandez cashed two more in with a two-run double. The 5-0 lead, the hope that this was going back to Los Angeles for Game 6, was gone.
The rest seemed incidental: The Yankees battled back for a 6-5 lead but gave it up with two in the eighth, the Dodgers taking advantage of a spent Yankee bullpen to cash in two championship-caliber sacrifice flies.
But the devil was in the fundamentals, which dogged the Yankees often during a 94-win regular season and into the postseason.
They probably win Game 1 if Gleyber Torres doesn’t butcher a throw from the outfield and give the Dodgers a crucial late-inning extra base. They almost certainly win Game 5 if the fifth was a clean inning.
That’s the difference between also-rans and champions.
“You can’t give teams like that extra outs,” says Judge. “They’re going to capitalize – their 1-2-3 at the top of the order, they don’t miss. You give them a chance with guys on base, they’re going to capitalize. You gotta limit the mistakes.
“That’s what it comes down to. You don’t give your opponent a chance to breathe. You go back to Game 1, a couple mistakes there, that flips it for us. That fifth inning – that hurt us there.
“Even though we were able to battle back and stay locked in, you can’t give them extra outs.”
And so the Yankees were left to bandy about the same word, from Chisholm to Boone and several others: Heartbroken.
They insisted this was a tight group, a special group, one that left the clubhouse doors shut for 45 minutes after the game to talk about just how special it was.
By the time they broke it up, the Dodgers had already hoisted the trophy and were several sheets to the wind a few hundred feet down the hall.
Better luck next year? Soto could be a goner. Torres is a free agent. The bullpen’s brilliance when it matters most is a tough thing to repeat.
No, what matters most is probably how the Yankees react to that lack of attention to detail, to those cracks that show up at the worst possible times.
To know what makes a difference when October turns to November.
Judge was asked what he’d take away from this first World Series experience. He paused, 15 seconds of silence, and considered his answer.
“A lot of different things, to be honest,” he says. “The chance to see Yankee Stadium rocking and rolling like that was pretty special. To see the city come alive. To compete with these guys − you battle through so much BS the entire season – the ups and downs, winning streaks, losing streaks, tough calls that don’t go your way.
“All to come down to these final games like this.”
Perhaps they’ll be better next time.
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