The Yankees held an enormous lead as the fifth inning began on Wednesday night and then the fundamental lapses that had, at times, afflicted them during the regular season swept through Game 5 and tilted it irrevocably.
Even though the Yanks later re-took the lead after squandering an early 5-0 advantage, pinstriped mistakes gave the Dodgers life they took all the way to the win that finished off a World Series title.
So what happened? After the Yankees’ 7-6 loss, those involved talked in a somber clubhouse about what went so wrong at the end of a season that went all the way to the Fall Classic.
Judge’s first error
Aaron Judge had not bungled a ball in the outfield all year and he’d made a sensational leaping catch to steal at least a double from Freddie Freeman in the fourth inning. But, an inning later, he did not catch Tommy Edman’s fly to center with a man on first and nobody out.
Judge said the ball didn’t knuckle or do anything weird, and there was no problem with lights or wind.
“I just didn’t make the play,” he said.
Said Aaron Boone: “It looked like, just kind of that sinking liner that Judgey missed.”
It put runners on first and second, the seeds of a rally, and set up the next gaffe.
Volpe’s poor throw
Will Smith hit a grounder to Volpe’s right at shortstop and he tried to cut down the lead runner at third, but he made a poor throw that Jazz Chisholm could not handle. Volpe was charged with a throwing error and the bases were loaded.
“The play to Volpe, the right move obviously going to third, a little bit of a short hop over there to third, didn't complete the play,” Boone said.
Chisholm said he did not believe it was a difficult play. “Just got to catch it and step on third base,” he said. He added: “I just feel like it was a big runner (Kiké Hernández) just coming in at the same time.”
Chisholm also added this: “Baseball, sometimes you could blink for one second and everything could be gone. For us, we were still going into it, trying to attack and trying to go at it.”
Dodgers star Freddie Freeman had a different view:
“I know they gave Volpe an error on that play,” he said. “But if you slow it down and you see how Kiké ran to third base, that's what set up that play. Him having an unbelievable base-running IQ there, and just to capitalize. You've got to get the big hits in the big situations, and we were able to do that in that inning.”