Schadenfreude 359 (A Continuing Series)

The Dodgers Knew The Yankees' Fatal Weakness — And Brutally Exposed It
Joel Sherman, Post (my emphasis)

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.

A highly enjoyable 114 seconds. 

And the comments:

Scouts Rip Aaron Boone For Yankees Mistakes — With One Glaring Issue Standing Out
Jon Heyman, Post

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."

Anthony Rizzo seemed to place the blame for allowing Mookie betts to beat out an infield single squarely on Gerrit Cole. (The biggest error of the inning still belongs to Lurch.)

Rizzo: "Those balls off righties, those are the hardest balls for us [first basemen to field] … I kind of was going for it, and then it kicked one way, so I had to really make sure to catch it first. 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. It was just a weird spinning [ball] that I had to really make sure to [secure]. And I think, even coming through [and going directly] to first, I don't know if I would have [gotten] him."

Cole sounded confused (or evasive): "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 [the grounder], as if to cut it off, because I didn't know how hard he hit it. By the time the ball got by me I was not in the position to cover first. Neither [myself nor Rizzo] were. Based on the spin of the baseball, and [Rizzo] having to secure it, and just a bad read off the bat."

A Post commenter: "It's not rocket science here. Both Cole and Rizzo were simply lazy. Cole didn't run to cover and Rizzo didn't bother to charge the ball and take it to the bag. Rizzo has been like that from the start of the season. He plays first like a 60-yr old beer leaguer now and Cole should have known that."