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.

Knowing Judge, that may seem like an impossible statement to digest, especially when the Yankees’ captain and Shohei Ohtani were in a league by themselves this year. But Judge’s disappointing stats through the first 2 1/2 rounds of these playoffs wound up being a footnote to the crowning 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 ...”), so too will Judge be saddled with that Tommy Edman fly ball that somehow clanged off his glove, allowing the Dodgers to soon tie the score that inning with five unearned runs.

Buckner’s play actually had the higher degree of difficulty, and we’ll never know for sure whether or not Mookie Wilson would have beat him to first base anyway. For Judge, however, there were no other variables. It was the type of routine fly ball that he’d probably never botched before in his life, at any level.

“Just didn’t make the play,” Judge said afterward.

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 his 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 winner.

At that time, the Yankees still led, 5-0, and their previously misfiring home-run machine was fully activated, as Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton each 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 only snowballed from there, followed by Anthony Volpe’s spiked throw to third for the second error, then Cole teaming up with Anthony Rizzo for the collective brain freeze that gifted Mookie Betts an RBI infield single.

“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 in Game 5, Judge had flipped his personal October narrative, and was in the process of doing some serious legacy-building en route to the Yankees taking that 5-0 lead. When Judge stepped to the plate in the first inning, the fans greeted him with a standing ovation, then 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 Yankees’ captain, and he rewarded them by smacking Jack Flaherty’s first-pitch fastball into the rightfield bleachers.

It was Judge’s 16th career playoff homer, third this October and first in 16 at-bats for his first World Series trip. The Stadium had been waiting for Judge’s signature moment, and with the Yankees fighting for their World Series survival, this was him doing captain things, as his predecessor Derek Jeter once did.

Three innings later, Judge spurred those MVP chants again when he crashed into the wall for a leaping catch of Freddie Freeman’s 405-foot fly ball in front of the visitors bullpen. This was turning into Judge’s night, the game where he finally earned his October pinstripes, after struggling mightily 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 even 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 failed to score in what amounted to their last gasp. So in a Game 5 that Judge homered and doubled in, along with making 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 Judge is going to be wearing that until the Yankees someday end their now 15-year championship drought. No matter how many regular-season MVP awards he stacks up, or home runs he hits.

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

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.