World Series: Aaron Judge, Yankees return home for Game 3 vs. Dodgers under dire circumstances
Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge strikes out in the ninth inning during Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
The Yankees have waited 15 years to play a World Series game at the Stadium, a place that used to serve as the home office for the Fall Classic.
Now they’ll do it Monday under the worst possible scenarios: planted in a 2-0 hole by the Dodgers, who twice rallied from deficits in Game 1 — punctuated by Freddie Freeman’s walk-off grand slam in the 10th inning — and hit three homers off Carlos Rodon in Game 2 before barely holding on for the win.
Historically speaking, it’s not an unfamiliar spot for the Yankees, a franchise with 27 championships. This is the ninth time they’ve been down 2-0 in the World Series, and they came back to win the title in four of those trips, the most recent being not so recent: 28 years ago, when new manager Joe Torre and a rookie shortstop named Derek Jeter dropped the first two in the Bronx to National League powerhouse Atlanta (outscored 16-1) and then reeled off four straight.
Torre laid out that exact blueprint for an agitated George Steinbrenner — “Don’t worry — Atlanta’s my town,” he famously said — and his Yankees responded with the birth of a dynasty under Torre’s reign.
We’re not sure what Aaron Boone has up his sleeve for clubhouse motivation, and Hal Steinbrenner is nothing like his bombastic dad. But the Yankees’ circumstances are no less dire, even though they’re returning to the Bronx rather than going on the road to the since-demolished Fulton County Stadium.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity, through 162 and then this postseason,” Aaron Judge said late Saturday night. “So guys are going to step up, guys are going to do what they need to do — I’ve got to step up as well.”
No kidding. Judge’s no-show in this World Series isn’t the only reason they’re in a tough spot — past teams down 2-0 have a 19.4% success rate of overcoming it — but he’s certainly at the top of the blame list. Half the Yankees’ lineup has done virtually nothing, and their supposed rotation edge dissolved at Chavez Ravine, where Gerrit Cole’s strong Game 1 start was squandered and the besieged Rodon got hit hard in his 3 1⁄3 innings.
As for Judge, he’s 1-for-9 with zero walks and six strikeouts and twice was the weak link during ninth-inning rallies that fizzled. In Friday’s Game 1, with the score tied at 2, first base open and the go-ahead run in scoring position, the Dodgers opted to intentionally walk Juan Soto for a shot at Judge, who promptly struck out against Blake Treinen. The next night, with the Dodgers up 4-1 and Soto on first after a leadoff single, Treinen whiffed Judge again. That same inning, the Yankees trimmed the deficit to 4-2 and left the bases loaded when pinch hitter Jose Trevino flied out against lefty reliever Alex Vesia.
According to MLB stat guru Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports on X), teams are 340-0 when taking a lead of at least three runs into the ninth inning of a World Series game. But Treinen was fading fast at the end of Game 2. He needed his 33rd pitch to whiff Anthony Volpe for the second out — a desperate sweeper that was nowhere near the strike zone. If Judge isn’t an automatic out, that could’ve been a very different ninth, and the same goes for the first two games, which were tight until the final pitches.
“This club never gives up,” Rodon said. “We’re here for a reason. It’s gonna be nice to go back home to the Bronx and feel that energy. So we’re looking forward to that.”
Let’s talk about that “energy” for a minute. Remember the 2022 Division Series, when Judge had an eerily similar start (0-for-8, seven strikeouts) and was booed in the Bronx during the extra-inning Game 2 loss to the Guardians? For context, Judge had just wrapped up what would be his first MVP regular season, also breaking Roger Maris’ long-standing AL record with 62 homers. And he still was booed by his own fans, only a few expletives short of the Jose Altuve treatment.
One can’t help but wonder if things will flip that badly Monday night if Game 3 goes south in a hurry and Judge continues to be the primary culprit. He’s already admitted that the failure to do his part is pressuring him into bad swing decisions, and that’s been a lingering theme throughout his career, as Judge’s 34.3% strikeout rate is the highest among players with a minimum of 210 plate appearances in the postseason.
It also raises an interesting question about whether being back in the Bronx, which has been inexplicably harsh on the Yankees in recent Octobers, is going to turn up the heat for a team that was narrowly outplayed by the Dodgers in L.A.
The Yankees squeezed by the first two playoff rounds, edging the Royals by a plus-2 run differential (over four games) and beating the Guardians by a plus-3 (over five games). They were used to winning by these tiny margins for most of October, but the Dodgers have been better (plus-5) at it in this World Series.
“No one said it’s going to be easy,” Boone said. “We won’t flinch. We’ve just got to keep at it.”
The Yankees definitely made their task harder by coming up empty in L.A. Better to get Monday’s Game 3 and not have to draw any inspiration from the ’04 Red Sox.
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.