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October 27, 2024

Schadenfreude 355 (A Continuing Series) 

Game 2
Yankees - 001 000 001 - 2  4  0
Dodgers - 013 000 00x - 4  8  0


Yankees May Need To Go Spiritual To Save Aaron Judge This World Series
Mike Vaccaro, Post

This CAN'T be the way this season is going to play out. . . . No. This can't be the way it's going to go the rest of the way, however long that is.

Surely, Aaron Judge will snap out of it.

Surely, he will return to form, and revert to being the most fearsome hitter in the game.

Because if he doesn't … . . .

"Our fans will have our back," Judge said. "They always do."

What the fans will need . . . is for Judge to play like Aaron Judge again, and as soon as possible. . . . [If not,] then they'll be lucky to last another 15 minutes. . . .

Judge came into Saturday night's Game 2 of the World Series with a postseason slash line of .167/.304/.361. He'd struck out 16 times in 36 at-bats. And things got even worse on Saturday: 0-for-4, three more strikeouts . . . 

If he can't turn this around, and quick, we might look at a second-straight season dying in Hollywood. That can't be the way the season is going to turn out, either. Right? . . .

The Most Surprising Concern About Aaron Judge's Deflating Yankees Slump

Greg Joyce, Post

Yankee Stadium will host its first World Series game in 15 years on Monday, but will it actually feel like a party?

The Yankees headed home in a [0-2] series deficit after a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 on Saturday night in which their offense was lifeless until the ninth inning, when their rally was too little, too late.

The Game 2 loss only made falling in Game 1 more regrettable. On Friday, they had two crucial defensive miscues that cost them and a few strategic decisions that were left for second-guessing. On Saturday, they straight up got beat. . . .

— The Yankees are not going to do anything if they don't get Aaron Judge back looking like Aaron Judge. [He] went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Saturday and is now 1-for-9 in the World Series and 6-for-40 with 19 strikeouts this October. . . .

Judge has fallen back into a slump at the worst time over these first 11 playoff games — reminiscent of a 6-for-43 with 20 strikeouts stretch he had in 11 games from April 15 to April 26, only these at-bats come with a heck of a lot more weight.

Judge was booed at home during the 2022 ALDS . . . A few empty at-bats on Monday night and history could repeat itself. . . .

In 11 first innings in these playoffs, Judge is 0-for-10 with six strikeouts and a hit by pitch. He has come to the plate with runners in scoring position seven times in 11 first innings and has not been able to do anything with it. The more it happens, the more deflating it threatens to be. . . .

— So much for the perceived rotation advantage the Yankees held coming into the series.

Some of it was just by nature of having four starters compared to the Dodgers' three, but that doesn't mean a whole lot when Carlos Rodon is only lasting 3.1 innings in Game 2 on a night when he was completely outdone by Yoshinobu Yamamoto (6.1 innings of one-hit, one-run ball). . . .

Rodon got hurt with his fastball on Saturday, as it was responsible for all three of the home runs he gave up . . . Rodon gave up four straight hits in the third inning and all of them came off his fastball.

— Tim Hill's performance in Game 2 won't quiet any of the second-guessing from Game 1. The lefty reliever . . . entered Saturday's game in the fifth inning and immediately got Freeman to pop out. That was the first of four straight batters Hill retired on 14 pitches. . . . [It] makes you think "What if?" again. . . .

Teams that have gone up 2-0 in the World Series have gone on to win it 80.4 percent of the time (45 out of 57). 


 


Yankees Remain Defiant, Even As The Dodgers Expose All Their Flaws
Joel Sherman, Post

There are no medals for mettle. Certainly not in the $300 million payroll megacoastal superpower division. . . .

[T]he Dodgers came back not once, but twice late to win Game 1 — or what the Yankees couldn't do in Game 2. And whatever surge the Yankees offered in the ninth inning Saturday did not erase that, for the first eight innings, the Dodgers were the far superior team en route to a 4-2 win and a two-games-to-none lead. . . .

What was expected to be the Yankees' main advantage in the rotation, wasn't. Jack Flaherty pitched Cole to a draw in the opener and Yoshinobu Yamamoto badly outpitched Carlos Rodon in Game 2.

The ability to go homer for homer and star for star and long lineup for long lineup with the Dodgers? Not quite. . . .

Central to that silence is that Aaron Judge continued to be missing in October, going 0-for-4 with three more strikeouts. . . . These Yankees are not built technically sound or well-rounded. They win with the long ball and that means having Judge at his fullest power — but so far the Dodgers have the edge there too . . .

The only way the Yankees can win this series is to get it back to Los Angeles, which means the 27 innings in The Bronx must be a lot better than what the Yankees offered over two days at Dodger Stadium.

[27?!?! MFY will be lucky if there's more than 18 innings in the Bronx.]

Carlos Rodon Sucked Life Out Of Yankees With Latest Collapse
Zach Braziller, Post

The bad Carlos Rodon showed up at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night.

With the Yankees in need of a big outing, Rodon instead imploded . . .

He yielded three home runs and failed to get through the fourth inning . . . 

"This start is hard, and it's unfortunate because it is Game 2 of the World Series," Rodon said. . . .

The Yankees gave Rodon a six-year, $162 million contract prior to last season . . . 

Rodon wasn't up to the task against the powerful Dodgers.

He registered just six swings-and-misses on his 63 pitches.

His three strikeouts were his fewest since June 21 against [Atlanta], 19 starts ago, and his 3.1 innings of work equaled his shortest outing of the regular season.

It was the worst start of Rodon's uneven postseason, in which he has allowed five homers and given up 11 earned runs in 17.2 innings, good for a dismal 5.60 ERA.

Of his four outings, this was the shortest, and it came at a bad time, with the Yankees in need of length after they went deep into their bullpen in Game 1.

Tim Hill's Game 2 Success Only Makes Aaron Boone's Nestor Cortes Decision Look Worse
Dan Martin, Post

A day late and a dollar short.

The Yankees brought in lefty Tim Hill in the bottom of the fifth inning on Saturday after going with Nestor Cortes in the 10th inning of Friday's Game 1 of the World Series that ended with Freddie Freeman's historic grand slam.

The results in Saturday's 4-2 Game 2 loss only made Friday's decision look worse, as the side-arming lefty Hill came in and got Game 1 hero Freeman to pop to short and then got Tommy Edman — who had homered and doubled earlier in Game 2 — looking to end the fifth with the Yankees trailing by three runs.

Hill retired all four batters he faced . . . It was another example of the journeyman Hill . . . getting batters out — which is something Cortes hadn't done in 37 days before he came into Game 1 . . .

As for Cortes, the lefty said he'd be ready to pitch again whenever called upon . . . Still, pitching coach Matt Blake acknowledged he was worried about Cortes' mindset — at least to a degree — after he allowed one of the biggest gut-punch home runs in franchise history.


Carlos Rodón Crumbles, Aaron Judge Keeps Struggling As Dodgers Ice Yankees For 2-0 World Series Lead
Gary Phillips, Daily News

Shortly before Game 2 of the World Series began, Ice Cube emerged from an opening in the center field wall at Dodger Stadium.Dressed in a shiny blue Dodgers jacket, a matching hat and Nikes, the rapper made his way from the warning track to the mound and then home plate. Each step came with a bar, as the Los Angeles native performed "Bow Down" and "It Was A Good Day" in an effort to hype up his hometown crowd. . . .

"Bow down to a team that's greater than you," O'Shea Jackson Sr. demanded while pointing toward the Yankees' dugout. He then asked a roaring Chavez Ravine, "Are we going to win Game 2 or what?" before transitioning to his second song.

The answer turned out to be yes, as the Dodgers took Game 2, 4-2, on Saturday. After getting walked off in Game 1, the Yankees now face a 2-0 series deficit with the Fall Classic heading back to New York. . . .

With Yankee Stadium set to host its first World Series game since 2009 on Monday, the odds are not in the Bombers' favor. . . .

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