The Yankees’ quest for their 28th World Series championship came up short after losing the series 4-1 to the Dodgers. The series was the very definition of a gentleman’s sweep. Other fans may criticize it, but for the Yankees and their fans, anything but winning it all is a total and complete failure, here’s why.
Let’s rewind a year, the Yankees had just wrapped up their worst regular season in 30 years, limping to an 82-80 record. The flaws just became too large. The lineup was almost exclusively made up of slow, aging, right-handed power hitters. Despite ace Gerrit Cole having a Cy Young Award winning campaign, the Yankees missed the playoffs by a large margin.
After the season was over, GM Brian Cashman quickly got to work acquiring left handed bats in OF Alex Verdugo, OF Trent Grisham, and OF Juan Soto. Soto was acquired with just one year of team control, which made this season a true World Series or bust. With the emergence of left handed hitting C Austin Wells behind the dish, the Yankees finally had balance in the lineup.
Just before the season, Gerrit Cole was set to miss a big chunk of the season due to elbow soreness. Tommy John Surgery was avoided, but Cole would miss almost all of the first half of the campaign. The Yankees starting rotation was a question mark early on, but solid starts from Nestor Cortes, Carlos Rodon, and the newly acquired Marcus Stroman eased those concerns.
As the season went on, the Yankees found themselves in an AL East race with the Orioles with the Yankees leading slightly most of the way and eventually winning it. Despite winning the division, the team showed serious flaws with poor infield defense, extremely poor baserunning, and a poorly positioned outfield. When the media or fans would bring those up, manager Aaron Boone often attributed it to “part of the 162” or “part of the daily grind.” Players were rarely disciplined for making outs on the base paths or making a crucial fielding error. Since the Yankees were winning enough games, the flaws went somewhat unnoticed. 2B/CF Jazz Chisholm Jr was acquired at the deadline and slotted into the 3B spot, somewhere he’s never played in the big leagues. While the defensive talent was clearly there, growing pains from learning a new position on the fly were evident.
The Yankees made their way through the ALDS with a 3-1 win against the Royals, and through the ALCS with a 4-1 win against the Guardians by just being a more talented baseball team. Big hits from Giancarlo Stanton and Juan Soto got the Yankees over the hump and their first American League pennant since 2009. When it got the World Series, it was a very different story.
In Game 1, the Yankees made a number of defensive errors, such as failing to cut a ball off before it went to the wall, or missing the cutoff man and allowing an extra base. That allowed the Dodgers to send the game into extras, where a walk off Freddie Freeman home run gave Los Angeles a 1-0 series lead.
The Dodgers extended their series lead to 3 with impressive pitching performances in Games 2 and 3 from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler. The Yankees took Game 4 due to the Dodgers saving their better arms for potential future games.
In Game 5 is where it all went wrong, but it didn’t start that way. The Yankees jumped out to a 5-0 lead with HR’s from Judge, Chisholm, and Stanton, but what happened in the 5th inning will live in Yankee fans’ nightmares for years. Aaron Judge dropped a routine fly ball and center before Anthony Volpe lawn darted a throw to Jazz Chisholm at 3B, trying to get a force out. After getting two strikeouts, Gerrit Cole thought he got out of the inning, when Mookie Betts hit a slow grounder to 1B Anthony Rizzo. Cole failed to cover and Rizzo was too far away from first, resulting in Betts reaching safely. After making 3 mistakes in the inning, the Dodgers would go on to tie it at 5, and then getting two more runs on sacrifice flies in the 8th, resulting in a 7-6 victory.
The 5-run 5th inning was compiled of mistakes the Yankees have made all year. Any reasonable Yankee fan wouldn’t be surprised at all with how that inning unfolded. Considering what was on the line, it can very easily be considered the worst inning in the history of baseball. Until the Yankees emphasize fundamentals, series like this will continue to happen. The talent can only take you so far.
Photo: amNewYork
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