NEW YORK — “As bad as it gets.”
Those five words, uttered by right-hander Gerrit Cole roughly an hour after the New York Yankees’ season ended in catastrophic fashion, somehow undersold what had transpired.
For the first four innings of Game 5 of the World Series, the Yankees had everything working. Propelled by a wave of momentum and confidence gathered in an 11-4 rout in Game 4 to avoid being swept and stave off elimination, New York burst out of the gate in Game 5. Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. launched back-to-back home runs off a shaky Jack Flaherty in the bottom of the first inning to surge to an early 3-0 lead, maxing out the crowd volume almost immediately. An Alex Verdugo RBI single in the second knocked Flaherty out of the game after he recorded just four outs. In the third, Giancarlo Stanton joined the home run party with a rocket to right field, a solo shot that made it 5-0 New York.
All the while, Cole was absolutely cooking. The No. 9 hitter, Gavin Lux, was the first Dodger to reach base, with a two-out walk in the top of the third. Cole did not allow a hit over the first four frames. With run support from the get-go, he was in all-out attack mode and appeared to be in the midst of a signature start that could strengthen his legacy as one of his generation’s greatest pitchers but, more pertinently, would ensure that the Yankees’ season didn’t end quite yet.
But in the fifth inning, the Yankees collapsed. After Kiké Hernández broke up Cole’s no-hitter with a single to lead off the frame, Tommy Edman smacked a standard line drive directly toward Judge in center field. But as Judge ranged in to make the play, his eyes drifted briefly to the baserunner Hernández, and the ball clanged off his glove and dropped to the grass. It was Judge’s first error of the year and his first error on which he dropped a fly ball since Aug. 17, 2017. Simply a stunning flub, considering the nature of the play and the player involved, but the prospect of a Dodgers rally still appeared far-fetched.
Then catcher Will Smith followed with a ground ball to shortstop Anthony Volpe, who attempted a quick throw to Chisholm Jr. at third base to nab the lead runner Hernández. Volpe’s throw landed a bit short, and Chisholm was unable to scoop the ball cleanly, allowing Hernández to reach safely — and load the bases with zero outs.
Things appeared to be spiraling for New York, but Cole remained in control, and the 5-0 lead remained intact. Unfazed by the defensive disaster surrounding him, Cole went back to work. He unleashed a 99.4 mph fastball — his fastest pitch of the night to that point — to strike out Lux. It took four pitches for Cole to dice up Shohei Ohtani for another strikeout, sending him back to the dugout with a vicious knuckle-curve that Ohtani swung through haplessly. An improbable escape was suddenly within reach, assuming Cole could contain Mookie Betts.
After a cutter for ball one, Cole uncorked a sharp slider that was too enticing for Betts to pass up. But the pitch was so perfectly placed on the outer edge of the zone that Betts’ connection with the ball was poor, sending it weakly on the ground toward first baseman Anthony Rizzo. Although the high amount of spin on the ball produced an odd trajectory on its journey, it wasn’t enough to fool the first baseman. Cole, however, had more trouble.
“I took a bad angle to the ball,” Cole explained afterward. “I wasn’t sure off the bat how hard he hit it, I took a direct angle to it, as if to cut it off, because I just didn’t know how hard he hit it. And by the time the ball got by me, I was not in a position to cover first. Neither of us were, based on the spin of the baseball and him having to secure it.”
Cole’s misread must have been fairly extreme considering how quickly the ball got to Rizzo. But whatever the reason behind his reaction, Cole was stuck in no-man’s land, and Rizzo was left without a play. The speedy Betts reached first safely as the Dodgers’ first run scored.
“I guess my angle should be a little more aggressive to first base to give myself a chance to continue to the bag if I don’t get the ball,” Cole said. “But I just didn’t read the ball well.”
It is a genre of play that is quite literally the first thing practiced at the outset of spring training — pitchers covering first base on routine ground balls — but New York’s most veteran pitcher failed to convert the out at the most inopportune time.
With that, the dam had broken.
Cole reared back for a 99.5 mph fastball to Freddie Freeman — his new hardest pitch of the night — only to have the eventual World Series MVP dump a single into center field to drive in two more runs. Teoscar Hernández followed with a soaring double over the head of Judge to drive in Betts and Freeman to tie the game.
“They put the ball in play,” Cole said. “And in baseball, you put the ball in play, and you get rewarded for it sometimes.”
“You give a team like the Dodgers three extra outs, they’re gonna capitalize on it,” Judge said afterward. “That comes back to me — I gotta make that first play. I gotta make the play … and then the other two probably don’t happen.”
In total, it was a sequence of collective failures that would be difficult to fathom at practically any level of baseball, let alone the highest one, on the sport’s biggest stage, with the most at stake. A Yankees team that overcame a multitude of mind-numbing defensive miscues and fundamental follies over the course of the season to reach the storied franchise’s first World Series in 15 years had finally made just one — or two, or three — too many mistakes.
And yet: the game was still tied, still there for the taking if the Yankees could flush the cataclysmic fifth frame and focus on the opportunity ahead. That said, after such an unbelievable series of events put the game in question, the notion that the Yankees could still emerge victorious felt awfully unlikely.
That sense of doom sustained in the stadium even after the Yankees retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth on a Stanton sac fly. Cole, remarkably, reemerged for nearly two more innings of work after his 38-pitch nightmare in the fifth, battling back until he was removed with two outs in the seventh in favor of Clay Holmes, who struck out Max Muncy to end the inning and put the Yankees within six outs of a Game 5 victory.
But the Dodgers again loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth — this time without the help of any errors — thanks to two singles and a walk against reliever Tommy Kahnle.
“I felt good all postseason,” Kahnle said, “and then got to today, and the command just kind of left me.”
Luke Weaver entered to attempt the ultimate Houdini act, but he surrendered sacrifice flies to Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts, allowing the Dodgers to reclaim a 7-6 lead — one that would hold thanks to brilliant work from L.A.’s best reliever, Blake Treinen, and an unexpected cameo from Walker Buehler to close out the Dodgers’ eighth championship in franchise history.
“You feel pretty confident with your ace up there, five-run lead,” Verdugo said afterward. “But you know, that’s baseball, man. They played the better baseball in this World Series.”
“It’s the worst feeling that you can have,” Cole said. “Especially because you have to keep willing yourself to believe and to give yourself a chance. And you just keep pushing, keep pushing. And you know, ultimately, we came up short. It’s just … it’s brutal.”
The Yankees took their time before grappling publicly with the devastating loss that ended their season. Clubhouse doors that traditionally open to the media within 10-15 minutes of the final out remained closed for nearly 45 minutes postgame, as manager Aaron Boone addressed his team at length after a roller-coaster ride that began eight months ago in Tampa ended in the Bronx just three wins shy of a World Series title.
“I understand the clubhouse was supposed to be open a while ago, and I apologize for that,” Boone told reporters. “I talked to you through the postseason and this World Series just about the closeness of that room. Really, that’s what it was all about, just guys pouring their hearts out and being there for one another, loving each other, because obviously this is a very difficult moment for us. You get to this point — as I said to the guys, obviously, it stings now.
“But this is going to sting forever.”
Once the room did open up, the raw emotions lingered as players shared long embraces and knowing glances of appreciation for one another, recognizing that the season meant a whole lot more than one tough night. Instead of packing bags with gear for a flight back to Los Angeles for Game 6, clubhouse attendants prepared boxes for players to ship their belongings to their offseason homes. Each player who spoke echoed Boone’s sentiments about how tight-knit this Yankees team was and how difficult it will be to turn the page, knowing this specific mix of players will never coexist again.
“It’s gonna be hard,” Verdugo said. “It’s been the closest group of guys I’ve been with. These guys can get me emotional … how much they mean to me and how much they accepted me and let me in. We got some things to think about, but I definitely want to be back in pinstripes to help us win one.”
Indeed, much will look different by the time pitchers and catchers report to camp in February, as a winter of transactional activity awaits. Such is the case for any team, but for the Yankees in particular, huge chunks of the roster could drastically change based on how the offseason shakes out — an offseason that will be fundamentally defined by the decision of soon-to-be free-agent outfielder Juan Soto, a generationally gifted 26-year-old whose next contract will likely exceed a half-billion dollars in value.
On Wednesday, Soto was one of the last players remaining in the Yankees dugout as the Dodgers celebrated around the mound. He sat on the bench with his bat in his hand and his helmet on his head, as his place in the batting order was just two spots away at the time of the final out.
“A lot of emotions going through my mind,” he said afterward when asked what he was thinking as he stared out at his jubilant opponents. “Definitely a little frustrated. But then I realized how far we got, how good we played as a team and how much we accomplished and just definitely thankful for God, who got me where I’m at and helped me with everything that I did this year.”
Few free agencies have been more highly anticipated than Soto’s pending journey into baseball’s open market. As such, the questions about how he’ll handle the process came fast and furious postgame. With his answers, Soto struck a consistent tone: appreciating his time as a Yankee while acknowledging the reality that he is now available for other teams to make a run at his services.
“I’m really happy with the city, with the team and how these guys do it, but at the end of the day, we will see,” he said. “We’re gonna look at every situation, every offer that we get and take the decision from that.
“… I don’t know what teams are gonna come after me, but definitely I’ll be open to every single team.”
Soto’s teammates maintained a similar tact when asked about his free agency, with Judge adding a crucial caveat: “Every single team that can afford him will be calling his phone.”
Indeed, Soto will be well out of the price range for the majority of major-league clubs, but the Yankees are not the majority of major-league clubs. Whether it’s reeling in a massive free agent such as Cole or retaining a homegrown superstar such as Judge, New York has shown a willingness to break the bank for the best of the best when the situation calls for it.
Considering how well Soto fit with Judge atop the Yankees’ lineup, he would seem to be the next candidate for the Yankees to offer whatever it takes to keep him in the Bronx for the long haul. But the competition for his services is sure to be fierce, and another suitor could sway Soto, in turn limiting his Yankees tenure to one single season that ended in especially painful fashion.
“It would definitely be a tough game to be my last one,” Soto said of the possibility that Wednesday’s heartbreaking loss was his final game in pinstripes.
In the coming months, Soto’s future will crystallize. He will stay a Yankee and become permanently beloved in the Bronx, or he’ll join another team fortunate enough to call him one of their own. Either outcome will have tremendous ramifications on the broader baseball landscape.
For now, as the brutal end to their season lingers and Soto’s free agency looms, the Yankees are left to wonder about what could have been and what will be.