World Series: Yankees simply haven't delivered vs. Dodgers
Aaron Judge #99 of the Yankees strikes out during the first inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in game three of the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Monday, Oct. 28, 2024. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Fat Joe to fat chance.
Not the epitaph the Yankees imagined for their 2024 season, but the one they wore nonetheless heading into Tuesday night’s do-or-die Game 4.
The Bronx rapper kicked off the franchise’s first World Series game at the Stadium in 15 years on Monday with a performance met mostly with indifference from the crowd of 49,368 and followed by the Yankees’ similarly lackluster effort.
It wasn’t Fat Joe’s fault if the title-starved fans were getting anxious for Clarke Schmidt’s opening pitch. We do blame the Yankees, however, for planting themselves in a historically impossible 3-0 hole for this World Series.
Nothing against the Dodgers, who have outclassed the AL champs in almost every category to this point. But the Yankees’ toughest foe through the first three games were the guys staring back in the clubhouse mirror.
And they had to tell those faces enough was enough before Tuesday’s Game 4. There’s no excuse for Hal Steinbrenner’s $313 million roster, the highest payroll in franchise history, to go down in short order, especially with reigning Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole fronting the rotation and likely MVP Aaron Judge anchoring the lineup.
Come October, Pride of the Yankees has got to mean something more than just a movie. If this 94-win group truly is special, as they’ve insisted all along, Tuesday was the time to prove those statements carried actual weight rather than merely empty words.
“We’ve certainly faced our share of adversity this year, and those guys have never flinched,” manager Aaron Boone said a few hours before Game 4. “This is my seventh year now, we’ve had a lot of what I would think were good, strong, close clubhouses. This one takes the cake.”
More like humble pie. However strong their clubhouse bonds may be, it had yet to result in a single World Series win. And none of that amounted to much a day earlier, when a pregame clubhouse meeting failed to produce a tangible impact between the lines, with the Yankees later buckling again in a 4-2 loss made that close by Alex Verdugo’s ninth-inning homer.
“I guess it only works if we win, right?” Rizzo said Tuesday. “I think it’s just a matter of us being together, and we are together. Everyone feels part of this, and there’s not a lot of teams that every guy can say that.”
Together on the wrong side of history, unfortunately. The Yankees are the 24th team to fall behind 3-0 in the World Series, and all but three were swept (that trio only made it as far as Game 5). In the first two playoff rounds, the Yankees were two runs better (14-12) than the Royals and nine (29-20) above the Guardians, but they couldn’t get enough traction against an L.A. rotation that was supposed to be inferior to their own.
Jack Flaherty was a trade deadline import the Yankees reportedly passed on due to concerns over an ailing back. Yoshinobu Yamamoto spurned Steinbrenner’s recruiting efforts (and highest AAV offer) to take $325 million from the Dodgers, but missed nearly three months this season with a shoulder injury before his September return. Walker Buehler was in the same boat, as his return from Tommy John surgery was marred by a June hip injury. Still, that trio combined to average more than five innings a start against the Yankees, with a 1.62 ERA.
Meanwhile, aside from Cole, the Yankees’ rotation has been a liability. Carlos Rodon teed up three homers in Game 2 and lasted only 31/3 innings. Schmidt — “the most confident guy on the field,” according to manager Aaron Boone — torpedoed the Bronx advantage in Game 3 by surrendering Freddie Freeman’s first-inning homer. He stuck around for only eight outs. All told, that’s a 6.00 ERA for the Yankees’ starting corps.
Facing elimination, the Yankees were forced to lean on Luis Gil, whose Game 4 start was only his second in a month, the other being Oct. 18 in the ALCS (4 IP, 2 R). But their survival wasn’t riding on the talented rookie’s shoulders. That responsibility fell to the Yankees’ badly misfiring lineup, particularly Judge’s head-scratching skid (1-for-12, 7 Ks) in this World Series.
Overall, the Yankees were hitting .186 with three homers and a .579 OPS. Most glaring, however was the 31 strikeouts — almost double that of the Dodgers (17). Whether that was due to L.A.’s astute game-planning or the Yankees bending under the pressure, it’s tough to tell. But the symptoms of their desperation were tough to overlook, including the doomed send of the plodding Giancarlo Stanton in the fourth inning of Game 3, as Anthony Volpe’s two-out single was a rarity for the Yankees (4-for-20 RISP in the series).
Incredibly, the Dodgers have been even worse in those scoring situations (3-for-19) but with one crucial difference: They’ve made those hits count more, and their stars have come through. Freddie Freeman, like Judge, has an MVP on his resume, only he’s delivered in the clutch spots.
When Boone had his worst night of the Yankees’ playoff run, making a handful of questionable decisions that snowballed in the Game 1 loss, it was Freeman who made him pay for the Nestor Cortes gamble with the walk-off grand slam. Freeman further polished his candidacy for World Series MVP by homering in all three games, as the Yankees failed to counterpunch. If they didn’t quickly reverse that trend for Game 4, the season would come to a crushing end.
“I wouldn’t say it’s surprising,” Cortes said. “We knew who we were going up against.”
As for the Yankees, they revealed themselves, too. At the worst possible time.
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.