Aaron Judge’s World Series Mistake ‘Stays With Me Until I Die’

Dodgers stop the Yankees’ comeback attempt and win the franchise’s 8th World Series Freddie Freeman had an all-time World Series performance to help the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Yankees and win the franchise their 8th title. SportPulse

NEW YORK – They’ve waited 15 years to reach baseball’s biggest stadium, but the biggest moments make them cringe.

They pride themselves on developing and importing players strong enough for the game’s biggest market – and then stepping into the spotlight when it matters most. And when the New York Yankees dispersed for the winter Wednesday night, they did so with the most bittersweet taste imaginable: that they lost this World Series by playing well below their capabilities. DODGERS WIN WORLD SERIES: Celebrate with this commemorative coffee table book! 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 they confirmed 4-1 victory over the Yankees in this World Series.

But inside a five-run lead in the fifth inning of the decisive Game 5 before losing 7-6, and having never managed to gain the upper hand over the Dodgers, thanks largely to self-inflicted wounds, the Yankees showed that they are not quite ready for this most prime of times -phase.

And so the battle between superteams continued World Series MVP Freddie Freeman and three-time champion Mookie Betts, one-year import Teoscar Hernandez and the ruthlessly tenacious Kiké Hernandez, all of whom contributed greatly to the Series victory in ways big and small.

The Yankees? They dropped a routine catch, threw a force play, failed to cover first – all in one inning – and by blowing both Games 1 and 5, they had a long shot at their first championship since 2009.

“I think falling short in the World Series will stay with me until I die,” said franchise player Aaron Judge, whose Game 5 was a journey in itself: a two-run home run to break an ongoing slump and put them ahead put in the first inning, making a surprise catch against the left-center field wall to rob Freeman — but then making a routine catch to pour kerosene during a five-run rally.

“Just like any other loss, those things don’t go away. There are battle scars along the way. Hopefully there will be battle scars when my career is over, but also many victories along the way.” It may take a while for the wound created in that fifth inning to go away. It started when Kiké Hernandez hit a leadoff single off Gerrit Cole, breaking his no-hitter. Tommy Edman then threw a fly to center where Judge came in, reached out and grabbed. Maybe he looked up too quickly. Anyway, the ball bounced off his glove. And a Yankee team with a 5-0 lead suddenly felt extremely vulnerable against the mighty Dodgers. What happened next can be partially described as “That’s Baseball” moments, but not entirely. DODGERS WIN WORLD SERIES: Celebrate with this commemorative coffee table book! With two up, Will Smith grounded into the gap at the short stop. Anthony Volpe’s best chance for an out was a throw to third base. But Hernandez created distractions in the basepaths. Volpe bounced the ball to third base. Jazz Chisholm couldn’t boast it. Bad throw and no help at the other end. Bases loaded. Cole – who manager Aaron Boone said was “really brilliant” – nearly struck out No. 9 hitter Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. Betts then threw a ball down the first base line.

He rolled toward the bag, spun back toward the infield, zigzagged and swung in the way a ball does when hit awkwardly. First baseman Anthony Rizzo had little choice but to freeze and let the spinning ball settle down. Yet Cole, now halfway through a grueling inning of 38 pitches, was unable to get off the mound and provide first coverage. Betts charged down the line. And earned the strangest RBI single.

“I think Gerrit — everything he went through in that inning, being a little bit exhausted and almost working his way out of it — just didn’t react fast enough to get over it,” Boone said. “Because of the spin, Rizz had to make sure you made it a little safe.

“It’s hard to run through that ball spinning like that.” And then the Dodgers attacked. Freeman hit a two-run single. Teoscar Hernandez cashed in two more with a two-run double. The 5-0 lead, the hope that it would get back to Los Angeles for Game 6, was gone.

The rest seemed incidental: the Yankees fought back for a 6-5 lead but gave it up with two in the eighth, with the Dodgers taking advantage of a spent Yankee bullpen to cash in on two championship-caliber sacrifice flies. But the devil was in the core, often haunting the Yankees during a 94-win regular season and into the postseason. They likely win Game 1 if Gleyber Torres doesn’t slaughter a throw from the outfield and give the Dodgers a crucial extra base late in the inning. They almost certainly win Game 5 if the fifth was a flawless inning. That’s the difference between also-rans and champions. “You can’t give teams like that extra zeros,” Judge said. “They are going to capitalize – they will not miss their 1-2-3 at the top of the table. If you give them a chance with guys on base, they’re going to take advantage. You have to limit the mistakes.

“That’s what it comes down to. You don’t give your opponent a chance to breathe. If you go back to Game 1, there’s a few mistakes there, things turned around for us. That fifth inning – that hurt us right there. “Even though we were able to fight back and stay locked up, you can’t give them extra outs.” And so the Yankees kept talking about the same word, from Chisholm to Boone and several others: Heartbroken.

They insisted that this was a close group, a special group, a group that left the clubhouse doors closed for 45 minutes after the game to talk about how special it was. By the time they broke it up, the Dodgers had already hoisted the trophy and were a few hundred yards down the hall several shots into the wind.

Better luck next year? Soto could be a loser. Torres is a free agent. The bullpen’s brilliance when it matters most is hard to replicate. No, the most important thing is probably how the Yankees respond to that lack of attention to detail, to the cracks that pop up at the worst possible times. To know what the difference is when October turns into November. Judge was asked what he would take away from this first World Series experience. He paused for a moment, 15 seconds of silence, and thought about his answer. “Honestly, it’s a lot of different things,” he says. “The opportunity to see Yankee Stadium rock and roll like that was pretty special. To see the city come to life. To compete with these guys – you fight through so much BS all season – the ups and downs, winning streaks, losing streaks, tough decisions that don’t work out in your favor.

“All to get to these last games like this.” Maybe next time they will be better.

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