W - L Paul H. 95-67 Jeff M. 94-68 Ben B. 93-69 Ray P. 93-69 Matt B. 92-70 Nick R. 92-70 David F. 91-71 Warren S. 90-72 Rich G. 89-73 Jacob L. 89-73 Michael B. 89-73 Michael G. 89-73 Brett H. 88-74 Allan W. 87-75 John G. 84-78We have everything covered from 88 to 95 wins (not counting my pick).
First, the breakdown of predictions for the American League pennant: Texas 11, Red Sox 9, Orioles 6, Yankees 3, Royals 2, Mariners 1, Astros 1. (The Athletic notes: "All of those Red Sox votes, by the way, came from writers based outside of Boston.")
National League Champs: Dodgers 16, Atlanta 5, Mets 5, Phillies 4, Diamondbacks 2, Padres 1. (Sorry, Central Division.)
World Series Winner: Dodgers 14, Red Sox 4, Atlanta 3, Phillies 3, Diamondbacks 2, Mets 2, Orioles 1, Texas 1, Mariners 1, Padres 1, Yankees 1.
Who were these four bold and insightful prognosticators?
Andrew Baggarly: Red Sox over MetsAnd the five slightly less bold crystal-ball gazers:
Dennis Lin: Red Sox over Dodgers
Eno Sarris: Red Sox over Atlanta
Cody Stavenhagen: Red Sox over Mets
Brittany Ghiroli: Mets over Red SoxOther predictions:
Zack Meisel: Phillies over Red Sox
Chandler Rome: Phillies over Red Sox
Will Sammon: Dodgers over Red Sox
Sahadev Sharma: Padres over Red Sox
AL Cy Young: Garrett Crochet 10, Logan Gilbert 8, Tarik Skubal 8 . . .AL MVP: Bobby Witt Jr. 18, Aaron Judge 5, Gunnar Henderson 3 . . .AL ROY: Jackson Jobe 14, Kristian Campbell 6 . . . Marcelo Mayer 1, Roman Anthony 1 . . .
NL MVP: Shohei Ohtani 18, Mookie Betts 5, Juan Soto 3 . . .
NL Cy Young: Zack Wheeler 14, Paul Skenes 12, Corbin Burnes 4 . . .
NL ROY: Roki Sasaki 15, Dylan Crews 9 . . .
ESPN wonders if the Yankees can "bounce back" from their historic World Series choke last October? (Boone: "I feel like it's going to sting forever." I certainly hope so.) In case you don't recall all of the wonderful details . . . and there were many . . . It. Was. Super. Fucking. Awesome. LOL!
All six of the Boston Globe writers picked the Red Sox to make the postseason for the first time since 2021, with three of them predicting an AL East title for the first time since 2018. But how far will the Hub Hose go?
Peter Abraham: Red Sox win East; lose ALCS G7 to Tigers; MFY miss postseason.
Chad Finn: Red Sox win East; lose ALCS to Texas.
Dan Shaughnessy: Red Sox win East. ["Will [John Henry] like me now?" . . . I wouldn't wager even a fucking dime on that.]
Alex Speier, Tara Sullivan, and Christopher L. Gasper all predict the Red Sox will win a wild card spot but not make it to the ALCS. Speier says the team is finally "at a point where they are rightly expected to reach the playoffs . . . their core talent is good enough to get to October".
Five Globers pick the Dodgers to repeat as World Series champions, defeating the Tigers (PA), Guardians (CLG), Orioles (DS), Royals (AS), Texas (CF)). TS goes with Mets over Texas.
CHB says, if his pick proves true, it would be "[r]evenge for the 1966 World Series". Would it, Dan, really? 59 years later?
Dan was 13 during that WS. He'll be seventy-fucking-two this summer. One week after the Orioles finished sweeping the Dodgers (with three consecutive shutouts), I celebrated my third birthday.
What I'm trying to say is, that was a long fucking time ago. Shohei Ohtani is in his early 30s. Were his parents even born by 1966? . . . It turns out they were, but it's close. An article from late 2017 states his father is 55 and his mother is 54, so they were born in 1962 and 1963, respectively.)
I learned the following from Yahoo Sports' five "MLB experts" — Jake Mintz, Jordan Shusterman, Russell Dorsey, Jack Baer and Jason Owens:
Three pick the Red Sox to win the AL East, with the other two tagging the Orioles (and picking Boston as a wild card team). All five pick the Yankees to win a wild card spot.
Dorsey picks the Red Sox to win the AL pennant, but lose the WS to the Dodgers. WS winners: Dodgers (3), Atlanta (1), and Phillies (1).
Crochet gets a Cy Young nod. Kristian Campbell and Roman Anthony get picked as ROY. Trevor Story is a pick for AL Comeback Player.
The five (in the order listed above) weigh in on the Dodgers' win total (108-109-105-104-103) and Ohtani HRs (45-44-43-36-45).
Four of the five say the Mets will finish with a better record than the Yankees. Shusterman rejects the schadenfreude.
Both Athlon and Lindy's pre-season magazines pick the Red Sox for third in the AL East.
The Red Sox will win the AL East, according to four of the five CBS Sports scribes. The Yankees get one pick for second place, and four picks for third.
Mike Axisa: Any margin of error the Yankees had coming into 2025 is gone now that they've lost Gerrit Cole for the year, Luis Gil for at least two months, and Giancarlo Stanton for who knows how long. . . . The Red Sox are the division's most improved team thanks to Garrett Crochet and Alex Bregman, and I love their offense. They have contact, they have power, they have speed. And also an excellent farm system they can use to upscale their roster . . .
Kate Feldman: I liked the Yankees' offseason. . . . But they needed to do more. Max Fried was a good pickup but all of a sudden he needs to be an ace with Gerrit Cole out for the year. They still don't have a third baseman. Are we supposed to think Aaron Judge can just carry an entire offense again? The Red Sox opened the winter by trading for Garrett Crochet and finished it by signing Alex Bregman. . . .
Dayn Perry: [T]he Red Sox have the most balanced roster and increasing levels of upside as the impressive young talent trickles in. I don't feel strongly about this pick, though. If the O's had done anything more to address the rotation, they'd be my easy pick here.
Matt Snyder: I think this is the strongest division in baseball, top to bottom. I thought my Red Sox pick would be an outlier, but instead several of us agree. I really like the look of their roster and they always seem to play above their heads anyway.
They do? Always?!?
Feldman picks Boston to win the AL pennant, but has them losing to the Mets. The other four WS picks are Dodgers (2) and Phillies (2).
I looked at SportsNet New York (SNY), because it's NY-based and has 14 contributors.
Red Sox: 7 division titles, 4 wild cards (picked by 11 of 14)
Yankees: 5 division titles, 9 wild cards (picked by all 14)
Six SNYers picked the Red Sox and Yankees to meet in the ALCS, because if both clubs are playing in October, how could you not? Fun Fact: All six picked the Red Sox to win the pennant!
ALCS: Red Sox win 8 of 9, Yankees win 1 of 8.
World Series: Red Sox win 2 of 8, Yankees lose 1 of 1.
Garrett Crochet got five picks as AL Cy Young and one person thought Rafael Devers would win AL MVP.
Mookie Malaise. Mookie Betts should be in the Dodgers' lineup today despite losing almost 20 pounds during a "long ordeal with a mystery illness". Betts is expected to be the Dodgers' shortstop this year (after playing right field and second base in previous seasons). Before his illness, Betts "had opened eyes in camp, showing a level of comfort at the position". Forget about playing all nine positions in one game, what about playing entire seasons at each position?
After a long, cold winter, it's heartening to witness the undeniable signs of spring: budding plants peeking and pushing themselves up through the cool soil, daylight lasting longer into the afternoon and evening, and the New York Yankees falling the fuck apart.
Welcome to the Schadenfreude Cafe. . . . Tonight's menu:
Aperitif:
The Yankees DH received his third round of PRP shots Monday, manager Aaron Boone said, after the first two sets of injections did not do enough to help his elbows. . . .Boone . . . was not sure when the slugger would be around the team again.On Saturday, Stanton called his injuries to both elbows "severe" and said he did not know when he could play or even swing a bat again. . . .
Appetizer:
After one Grapefruit League start last spring, Cole's elbow bothered him before he eventually received a diagnosis of nerve inflammation and edema, which called for rest and rehabilitation.Cole lasted two Grapefruit League starts this spring before the same elbow grew "alarming," Cole said.The righty was knocked around in an outing Thursday, felt the hinge grow progressively more sore and knew "something wasn't right."It is difficult to overstate what the loss of Cole means to the player and his Yankees future.
The Dodgers won four World Series games with a .206 average, seven homers and 25 runs. The Yankees won one World Series game with a .212 average, nine homers and 24 runs. On a piece of paper — where too much of the Yankee front office continues to reside — this was an even World Series. On the field, the Yankees blundered away Games 1 and 5.By the end of Wednesday night, with the Dodgers being handed gift after gift to rally from a five-run deficit to win the clincher, 7-6, you could have convinced me the Emmy for best comedy of the fall season should go to the Yankees' defense . . . They played perhaps the worst fielding inning in World Series history in the fifth of Game 5, allowing five unearned runs to score with two outs. . . .The Yankees have been getting eliminated by non-AL Central teams annually in October because they just do not execute the routine well and when the level of competition goes up, those shortcomings in the A-B-Cs of the game are fully exposed. . . .The Yankees talk a good game about what they work on. But there is a difference between checking items off a to-do list and taking ball after ball off an outfield wall with seriousness of purpose even when you are a Hall-of-Fame caliber player such as Betts. [The column began noting that Betts practices fielding balls off the wall and making sure he's in a good position to throw the ball for a long time every single day during the season.]To do baseball well is to emphasize and practice the routine relentlessly with enthusiasm, concentration and pride. You are either demanding that from the top down — from Brian Cashman to Aaron Boone to the captain, Aaron Judge — or you are just going through the motions. When mistake after mistake continues to be made during the season and they are not corrected because you are talenting your way to 90-plus wins, it is seeing the tornado outside of town and not evacuating. The Dodgers are eventually blowing through your town.When you are in charge of something and see redundant mistakes, you are either fixing them or condoning them — there is no middle ground at this level. . . .What the Dodgers told their players in scouting meetings was the Yankees were talent over fundamentals. That if you run the bases with purpose and aggression, the Yankees will self-inflict harm as was exposed by Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, etc. That the value was very high to put the ball in play to make the Yankees execute. They mentioned that the Yankees were . . . the majors' worst baserunning team by every metric . . .They were thrilled at how short Yankee leads were at first base to potentially be less of a threat on pivots at second . . . They said their metrics had the Yankees as the worst positioned outfield. They were amazed how many times relay throws came skittering through the infield with no one taking charge and how often Jazz Chisholm Jr., for example, was out of place or just standing still when a play was in action. . . .Aaron Boone is the grandson, son and brother of major leaguers and was one himself. This can't really be acceptable to him — can it? His modus operandi can't just be positivity. There has to be a greater accountability to cleaning up the messiness of the fundamentals. Cashman has to stress finding players who care about playing the game well — it can't just always be best talent wins.Look, I get it. Every outraged Yankee fan wants both fired. We can waste a lot of words on something that Hal Steinbrenner isn't going to do off a World Series appearance — no matter how forceful any case is. So can these guys create and demand something cleaner? Can Judge enforce it from within at a higher level?Or will we be watching America's Funniest Baseball Videos again next October?
Dodgers' Joe Kelly Mocks Yankees And 'Fat Joe Curse' In Scathing Interview
Erich Richter, Post
After the Yankees choked away a 5-0 lead, the always outspoken Dodgers pitcher [Joe Kelly] explained that Fat Joe was seen on the Jumbotron before the fifth inning signaling their opponent was about to surrender their advantage.
"They put Fat Joe up on the board, and I was like, 'Oh, it's an easy dub now,'" Kelly said after the Dodgers' Game 5 World Series-clinching victory. "You know Fat Joe is the curse."
The Bronx-born rapper was previously roasted on social media for his poor performance while leading the Yankees into Game 3 of the World Series. . . .
"They started kicking the ball around and playing Yankee defense," Kelly continued while laughing. "Oh, he was on the Jumbotron, I'm pretty sure, right before the fifth. I looked over at [Brent] Honeywell and said 'The Fat Joe Curse, watch.' and we started chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. And bad play, bad play, bad play. And I end up getting my second one with the Dodgers."
The Yankees made two errors — Aaron Judge dropping a fly ball and Anthony Volpe one-hopping a throw to third base — along with Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rizzo getting beaten to the bag by Mookie Betts in that disastrous fifth that saw the Dodgers score five runs on their way to a 7-6 win.
Scouts criticized Yankees manager Aaron Boone for a few of his World Series moves, but two in particular in Game 5:1) Not bringing in closer Luke Weaver to start the eighth (with the bottom of the order up, Boone presumably figured Tommy Kahnle, who'd been very solid, could suffice, but Kahnle allowed all three Dodgers to reach before Weaver was called upon).2) Eschewing a mound visit during the fifth-inning, five-run debacle that lasted 21 minutes. (Pitching coach Matt Blake did go out for a visit during that fateful fifth, but not Boone)."How the [heck] was there no visit to the mound in — 36 pitches, three errors (actually two plus the failure of Anthony Rizzo or Gerrit Cole to get to first base)?"In any case, the likelihood is that the Yankees pick up their beloved Boone's 2025 option, believed to be for $3M plus.The real negative reflection on Boone was how poorly the Yankees ran the bases throughout the year. Yankees officials say it was a point of emphasis in spring. One AL scout said this was them at their worst. "The Yankees played really bad in this series, probably the worst they played all season."
Game 5
Dodgers - 000 050 020 - 7 7 0
Yankees - 311 001 000 - 6 8 3Yankee Elimination Days
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This one will sting. This one will leave a mark. There will be days and nights in the weeks and months to come when this game is going to visit you – in your sleep, daydreaming in your office, lamenting with friends around a water cooler. . . .The Yankees lost Game 5 of the 120th World Series last night, 7-6, and it is almost impossible to understand how that happened. . . .They led 5-0. Gerrit Cole threw four no-hit innings, at one point extending a two-game Yankees streak to 27 retired Dodgers in a row. He was everything he has always promised . . . The crowd at Yankee Stadium, 49,263 strong, was planning for a three-hour party, and then a night, Thursday, to catch their breath and soothe their voice boxes before Game 6 Friday.Before continuing a quest to heal that two-decade wound.Then, in an eyeblink, it was 5-5.And that was impossible to understand, too. Aaron Judge. . . dropped a fly ball.Wait. He did what?Yes. He dropped a fly ball, off Tommy Edman's bat. It was a Little League fly, too. If he sees that exact same ball a thousand times — no, make that 100,000 times — he catches it 99,999 of them. It was inexplicable. And then Anthony Volpe . . . bookended it with a poor throw to third on a ball in the hole.You can't give the White Sox five outs in an inning and expect to get away with it; you sure can't give a team with 108 wins like the Dodgers five outs. . . . [Cole] nearly got away with it. He struck out Gavin Lux . . . He struck out Shohei Ohtani . . . And then he got Mookie Betts to ground meekly to first.He was going to get out of it.Except he suffered a brain cramp at the worst possible moment. He failed to cover first base. . . .(Follow-up: you REALLY can't give the Dodgers SIX outs and expect to get away with it.)They didn't get away with it. . . .Now begins the long, endless offseason, one of the longest Yankees fans have endured in decades. . . .The end is cruel. The whole sport is cruel. . . ."This," Gerrit Cole said, "is as bad as it gets."
The Yankees staged a keen competition in a tension-filled Game 5 of the World Series, and it was with themselves.It was once again the Yankees' overwhelming talent vs. their underwhelming carelessness.It was their skillfulness vs. their sloppiness.Turns out their talent couldn't quite carry the day, which ended in devastating defeat and painful elimination as the Dodgers, very skilled yet significantly more solid, were crowned World Series champions. . . .The Yankees were hoping to join the 2004 Red Sox as the only team to win a postseason series of any sort after falling behind 3-0 in games, which, you'll recall was done against the Yankees in the ALCS. But instead . . . their first Fall Classic appearance in 15 years ended in heartbreak.The Yankees couldn't quite outplay their mistakes, blowing leads of 5-0 and 6-5. . . . [A]bject overall negligence did them in. . . .Gerrit Cole pitched into the seventh without allowing an earned run — although there were five unearned runs from an unforgettable nightmare of a fifth inning.That's when the Dodgers tied the score with the aid of errors by Judge and Anthony Volpe and a failure to record an out on a routine bases-loaded, two-out grounder by Mookie Betts to first base . . . on a play that could have kept the inning scoreless.In the end, absentmindedness trumped ability.
It was the inning from hell, and it helped end the Yankees season.The top of the fifth of Game 5 of the World Series started with the Yankees up 5-0 and Gerrit Cole tossing a no-hitter.It ended with the game tied, and what had been a party at Yankee Stadium started to feel like a funeral . . .Kiké Hernandez led off the inning with the Dodgers' first hit of the night, a single to right, and The Bronx faithful gave Cole a quiet cheer for his four no-hit innings.That's when things got weird.Aaron Judge . . . dropped a routine fly ball by Tommy Edman. . . .Hernandez had gone back to first base, but reversed course and raced to second in time to beat Judge's throw.It was Judge's first error of the year, either in the regular season or the playoffs. . . .Then Will Smith sent a grounder to shortstop. Anthony Volpe went to his right and fielded it, but he bounced a rushed throw to third and Jazz Chisholm Jr. couldn't come up with it, so Edman was safe at third and the bases were loaded with no one out.That's when Cole put his ace hat on . . . He whiffed Gavin Lux for the first out . . . Cole followed by striking out Shohei Ohtani . . .Just an out away from an incredible escape, Cole still had to get through Mookie Betts. . . .Betts squibbed a grounder to first, and Anthony Rizzo, never the fastest of players, didn't charge the slow chopper.Worse, Cole — who initially started moving to first to cover the base — stopped and just pointed at first base, thinking Rizzo could get there in time and didn't cover the base.A hustling Betts easily beat Rizzo to the base. The infield hit made it 5-1, as Edman scored.Instead of the inning being over and the Yankees up by five runs, World Series home-run machine Freddie Freeman became the seventh batter to the plate, and he drilled a two-run single to center.Suddenly, it was 5-3, and Cole and the Yankees were teetering toward disaster.But wait, it got worse.Teoscar Hernandez came up and blasted a two-run double off the wall in center, a 404-foot shot that tied the game at 5-5.What had seemed almost impossible to imagine as the fifth inning got underway was a reality.Still, Cole remained on the mound as Tommy Kahnle, who blew the game for good in the eighth, began to get loose in the bullpen. . . .In the end, Cole threw 38 pitches in the frame after needing just 49 pitches to get through the first four innings.
Gerrit Cole was cruising. The Yankees bats had come alive. It was 5-0 after four innings and the Dodgers didn't have a hit.The World Series felt destined for Friday night in Los Angeles.Then it all came crashing down . . . Defense played a major part, including his own failure to cover first base, but Cole also couldn't put away Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez in a big spot. . . .Cole flushed [Is this an homage to George King III?] a five-run lead in their season-ending, 7-6 loss to the Dodgers at the Stadium on Wednesday night. . . ."It's the worst feeling you can have. … It's just brutal." . . .While errors by Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe on back-to-back plays enabled the Dodgers to load the bases with no outs, Cole was within one out of getting out of the jam after striking out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani.Cole, however, failed to cover first base on a Mookie Betts roller to Anthony Rizzo, allowing the Dodgers' first run to score.Cole said afterward that he misread the spin on the ball, thinking he could field it and took a poor angle. . . .Cole couldn't finish off either Freeman or Hernandez, allowing two-strike hits to both that enabled the Dodgers to get even at 5-5. . . .Cole couldn't make the five-run lead stand up. The Yankees are going home.
The Yankees now hurdle into an offseason of uncertainty after a season of . . . far too many mistakes and ultimately yet more disappointment. . . .Dave Roberts's group fought its way out of a five-run hole, with the hosts' help, and celebrated on the field in The Bronx in a dramatic, 7-6, Game 5 Yankees loss on Wednesday that was part heartbreaker and part self-inflicted head-shaker. . . .Aaron Judge . . . will return but for what will be his 33-year-old season.As (likely) will Gerrit Cole, who . . . will turn 35 in September.Giancarlo Stanton will reach his 35th birthday next week. The core is aging, and maybe the window is beginning to close without a title. . . .[T]hey left 12 on base, went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position . . .In a season in which the Yankees continually attempted to out-hit their mistakes, those mistakes made the difference in an inning that will haunt this franchise. . . .Such is how the Yankees' season died: Bemoaning what could have been . . . while watching what was — a World Series that slipped away.
From the first day of spring training to the last, nothing is more common in each camp than pitcher's fielding practice. . . .Day after day. The routine. The monotony. . . . [N]one is more practiced than ground ball to first, pitcher gets over to cover. It is designed to make sure the most basic of plays is executed correctly.So fittingly, it executed these 2024 Yankees — perhaps the most technically unsound team to ever get this far.In a slapstick fifth inning in which the Yankees played all their greatest hits — or, more familiarly, errors — they still would have survived had Anthony Rizzo and Gerrit Cole completed a Baseball 101 play. But in the worst World Series blunder at first since perhaps the ball going by Billy Buckner, both made mistakes of omission.And the Yankee season is over because of it . . .The Yankees lost the first game of the World Series and the last game of the 2024 MLB season because they are bad at baseball. In those two games, they handed away outs and 90 extra feet like the kindest Santa in the world. . . .[M]ultiple Yankees talked in a losing clubhouse about "mistakes" that doomed them as if they were not within the team's control to prevent. Since mid-February. And, really, longer than that.These Yankees, after all, have been on a rinse, repeat cycle as to how they lose in the postseason during the Aaron Judge Era. Their fundamental maladies are overcome against inferior AL Central opponents, but when the degree of October difficulty rises, the Yankees crumble.The Yankees were 31-9 (.775) against the AL Central (postseason included) this year and 71-65 (.522) against everyone else. They have played seven rounds against the AL Central in the playoffs since 2017, including two to win the AL pennant this year, and advanced through all seven. They have played eight rounds against everyone else and won only one, the one-game wild card in 2018 vs. the A's . . .They won one World Series game this year — Game 4, when the Dodgers threw none of their main pitchers: The AL Central of strategies. . . ."You have to limit mistakes," Judge said. "You don't give your opponent a chance to breathe."The Yankees all but built an oxygen tent to revive the Dodgers . . .[Judge] dropped a routine fly to center with one on and none out in the fifth. He said there was no reason for what was his first error all year. Anthony Volpe then spiked a ball that Chisholm could not corral at third and the bases were loaded . . . [Cole got two outs and Betts] squibbed [a] grounder to first.Rizzo said he laid back on it because of the English on the ball, but attacking it would have allowed him to make the play unassisted. Cole said he initially broke as if to try to grab the grounder — which was not really that close to him — and that set him off on a bad pathway to cover first … and he just stopped. Neither made it to the bag. Betts did. An inning-ending groundout instead became an RBI single. . . .The routine becoming not routine. The Yankees being the 2024 Yankees. . . .The Yankees would actually take a 6-5 lead in the sixth, but it was an inning in which they had three walks and no hits. They drew eight walks from the second to eighth innings and that was the lone one that scored. They went 1-for-10 overall with runners in scoring position. . . .[T]he story of the 2024 Yankees was finalized — beneficiaries of a favorable draw, talented enough to get to the World Series, but again not technically sound enough to beat a heavyweight opponent.
The Yankees' error-prone ways in Game 5 on Wednesday night at the Stadium didn't stop with their fifth-inning implosion.Bombers backstop Austin Wells was tagged for catcher's interference in the eighth inning in a play that the Dodgers immediately took advantage of.The Dodgers came into the inning trailing 6-5 but pounced on Yankees reliever Tommy Kahnle, with Enrique Hernandez and Tommy Edman singling before Will Smith walked on four pitches to load the bases with no outs. . . .[Facing Luke Weaver] Gavin Lux hit a sacrifice fly to score Hernandez.That brought up Shohei Ohtani . . . [who] fouled off Weaver's 89.7 MPH changeup but nicked the webbing of Wells' mitt as he came around — and earned a trip to first due to interference.The Yankees' challenge did not go their way, nor did the following at-bat, in which Mookie Betts sent a sac fly to center field, scoring Edman for a 7-6 lead.
Derek Jeter Hasn't Seen Anything Like This Yankees World Series Meltdown
Erich Richter, Post
This didn't happen in Derek Jeter's era.
In an inning that featured two errors on routine plays and another crushing gaffe, the Yankees blew a five-run lead to the Dodgers en route to a 7-6 defeat in an embarrassing close to their season.
"I don't know if I've ever quite seen an inning like this, especially in a World Series or postseason game." [Jeter] said . . . on Fox's postgame show. "The Yankees made some mistakes, you can't make mistakes against a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers. In that particular inning, you gave them six outs." . . .
Jeter's ex-Yankees teammate Alex Rodriguez, who was a part of the 2004 Yankees which blew a 3-0 lead to the Red Sox, [said] "This is one of the greatest meltdowns that I've ever seen in 40 years" . . .
With the year over and the sourest of tastes in their mouth, the Yankees have tons of question marks to answer this winter. . . .
Juan Soto heads to free agency and he said that the Yankees do not have the edge when it comes to re-signing him.
What Went Wrong On Disastrous Yankees Play In Crushing World Series Moment
Will Zimmerman, Post
It was the debacle to end all debacles.
A miscommunication between Yankees ace Gerrit Cole and first baseman Anthony Rizzo on a routine ground ball contributed to one of the most cataclysmic innings in Yankees history on Wednesday, when the Bombers let Game 5 slip out of their hands . . .
The Yankees held a five-run lead at the top of the fifth inning and seemed poised to keep their World Series dreams alive.
That all came crashing down following a series of blunders, which included a botched throw to third base by shortstop Anthony Volpe and a muffed line-drive catch by Aaron Judge, allowing the Dodgers to creep back into the game.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Dodgers star Mookie Betts hit a grounder to first with Rizzo failing to charge while Cole — who initially ran toward the bag — stopped. . . .
"I looked up to flip [the ball to Cole] and, uh, that's what happened…" . . .
"Pitchers are always taught to get over, no matter what," Rizzo said. . . .
Aaron Judge . . . was unable to come up with a Tommy Edman line drive with a runner on and nobody out in the fifth inning, an error that led to a five-run frame for the Dodgers in their World Series-clinching, 7-6 victory over the Yankees in Game 5 in The Bronx on Wednesday night. . . .Asked what went wrong, he said: "I just didn't make it."Judge had company in the fifth. Anthony Volpe made an error immediately after and with a chance to get out of the inning unscathed, Gerrit Cole failed to cover first base on a slowly hit grounder by Mookie Betts to Anthony Rizzo.The floodgates opened from there, but it all started with the Judge drop, as five unearned runs crossed against Gerrit Cole. . . .[Judge] doubled in the eighth with one out and the Yankees down a run. But they couldn't push the tying run across. . . .Instead of getting ready to board a plane back to Los Angeles, the Yankees' season ended Wednesday night. . . .[Judge] hit .184 and struck out 20 times in 49 [postseason] at-bats. . . . October success has proven elusive for him. That trend continued Wednesday night."I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me til the day I die, probably," Judge said.
