Yankees' Aaron Judge will wear his World Series Game 5 error until team finally breaks title drought

The discussion surrounding Aaron Judge for most of October focused on how much he was hurting the Yankees with his sub-MVP-level production.

Then, after Wednesday night’s Game 5 of the World Series, Judge finally managed to change the conversation.

Now, heading into a long winter, it’s all about how Judge killed the Yankees in the 7-6 loss to the Dodgers that ended their season before a shocked crowd of 49,263 at the Stadium.

That may seem like an impossible statement to digest, especially given that Judge and Shohei Ohtani were in a league by themselves in 2024. But Judge’s disappointing stats through the first 2 1⁄2 rounds of the postseason wound up being a footnote to the calamity that went down during the stomach-turning fifth inning of Game 5.

We won’t go with the Bill Buckner comparison. The stakes obviously weren’t at that level. But just as the Red Sox’s hobbled first baseman lived in infamy for nearly two decades, accompanied by Vin Scully’s eternal soundtrack (“Behind the bag, it gets through Buckner . . . ”), Judge will be saddled with that Tommy Edman fly ball that somehow clanged off his glove, setting the stage for five unearned runs that allowed the Dodgers to tie the score.

Buckner’s play actually had the higher degree of difficulty, and we’ll never know for sure whether he would have beaten Mookie Wilson to first base anyway. For Judge, however, there were no other variables. It was the type of routine fly ball that he probably had never botched before in his life, at any level.

“Just didn’t make the play,” he said.

Also, Judge’s error — his first all year — wasn’t fatal for the Yankees. Unlike Buckner, the game didn’t end on his mistake. But the bizarre nature of Judge’s blunder, akin to a thunderbolt out of a cloudless blue sky, greatly magnified its significance in the Yankees’ unraveling.

Coming after the Dodgers’ first hit against the masterful Gerrit Cole — a leadoff single by Enrique Hernandez — Judge’s glitch breathed life into L.A.’s stirring comeback hopes, but it was still the bottom of the order having to contend with the reigning Cy Young Award winner.

At that time, the Yankees still had a 5-0 lead and their previously misfiring home run machine had been fully activated, as Judge, Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton had gone deep. But the Judge clank was such an outlier, it created an uneasy feeling at the Stadium. And as we know, the Yankees’ troubles snowballed from there.

Anthony Volpe spiked a throw to third for the second error and Cole — after striking out Gavin Lux and Ohtani — teamed with Anthony Rizzo for the collective brain freeze that gifted Mookie Betts an RBI infield single. That set up a two-run single by Freddie Freeman on a 1-and-2 pitch and a two-run double by Teoscar Hernandez on another 1-and-2 pitch.

“That comes back to me. I gotta make that play,” Judge said. “That line drive coming in, I misplay that, then the other two happen. If that doesn’t happen, it could be a completely different story.”

Earlier, Judge had flipped his personal October narrative and was in the process of doing some serious legacy-building.

When Judge stepped to the plate in the first inning, the fans greeted him with a standing ovation and broke into “M-V-P!” chants as he dug into the box. The sellout crowd was trying to provide a spiritual lift to the struggling captain, and he rewarded them by smacking Jack Flaherty’s first-pitch fastball into the rightfield bleachers.

The Stadium had been waiting for Judge’s signature moment, and with the Yankees fighting for their World Series survival, this was him doing the kind of captain things predecessor Derek Jeter once did.

Three innings later, Judge spurred those MVP chants again when he crashed into the wall to make a leaping catch of Freddie Freeman’s 405-foot drive in front of the Dodgers’ bullpen. This was turning into Judge’s night, the game in which he finally earned his October pinstripes, after struggling under the weight of playoff expectations.

Before reaching the World Series, Judge had batted .193 (16-for-83) in 22 ALCS games with 33 strikeouts and a .715 OPS. Overall, his 32.8% strikeout rate is the highest of any player with a minimum of 210 plate appearances in the postseason. This October, Judge hit .083 (1-for-12) with runners in scoring position, and twice teams intentionally walked Juan Soto to pitch to him.

In the ALCS, when the Guardians loaded the bases in front of him, Judge responded with a sacrifice fly. Last Friday in L.A., Judge popped to short, stranding the go-ahead run at second base in the ninth inning of Game 1, which the Yankees lost, 6-3, in 10 innings.

On Wednesday, Judge tried to rally the Yankees late with a one-out double in the eighth inning but was stranded in what amounted to their last gasp. So in a Game 5 in which Judge homered, doubled and made a spectacular run-saving catch, the lasting image that will stick to him is the fly ball that didn’t stick in his glove.

And now, no matter how many regular-season MVP awards he stacks up or home runs he hits, Judge will wear that until the Yankees end their now-15-year championship drought.

“Falling short in the World Series will stick with me until I die,” Judge said. “Just like every other loss, those things don’t go away. They’re battle scars along the way. Hopefully, when my career is over, we have a lot of battle scars but also a lot of victories along the way.”

For now, after his only World Series trip in nine years, the scars are all Judge’s Yankees are left with.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.