The Judge Was Silent And The Dodgers Won

The Yankees spent much of the season highlighting their team’s unity, insisting this roster was built to win as a cohesive group. In a way, they were right. They lost the World Series together, staying tightly knit even as they stumbled against the Dodgers in Game 5, falling 7-6. Surprisingly, it wasn’t their well-known struggles—unsteady starting pitching, a thin bullpen, or their all-or-nothing offense—that ended their hopes. Instead, it was a recurring issue that haunted them all season: a frustrating knack for brilliant but occasionally baffling play.

Almost everyone contributed to the chaos. The game became historic for all the wrong reasons: it was the first World Series matchup in which a team logged a balk, two errors, and catcher’s interference. Center fielder and team captain Aaron Judge summed it up with classic understatement: “Just a couple mistakes along the way that hurt us.” He was describing the disastrous fifth inning, when the Yankees committed three defensive blunders and handed the Dodgers five unearned runs. But he could have been talking about the season as a whole. New York racked up 94 wins and the AL pennant, but they played an inconsistent brand of baseball that kept fans on edge. Statistically, their outfield defense landed in the league’s bottom third, and no team in baseball ran the bases worse. Statcast doesn’t track boneheaded moves, but the Yankees could have topped that list too.

The fifth inning started with Dodgers center fielder Kiké Hernández singling to kick things off. Dodgers shortstop Tommy Edman hit a blooper to shallow center, which should have been a simple catch for Judge, but the ball clanked off his glove instead. Judge didn’t make any excuses, admitting simply, “Just didn’t make the play.” Five pitches later, Will Smith hit a grounder to Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe. Trying to get an out at third, Volpe made a rushed, off-balance throw that missed its mark. A couple of chances for easy outs ended in no outs at all, loading the bases.

Gerrit Cole responded by striking out two hitters, Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani, but when Dodgers star Mookie Betts grounded to first, Cole didn’t hustle over to cover the bag. Complicating things, first baseman Anthony Rizzo also froze. This miscue allowed Betts to reach base and pushed another run across for the Dodgers. Cole later acknowledged he had misread the situation, taking “a bad angle to the ball,” as he put it, instead of making a beeline to cover first base. By the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. That fifth inning encapsulated the Yankees’ season in a nutshell, with a string of defensive gaffes snowballing into a nightmare inning.

Incredibly, the Yankees had been riding high before that inning, looking every bit like a team determined to claw back into the series. Just four batters into the bottom of the first inning, they had taken a 3-0 lead, adding another run in the second. Cole carried a no-hitter through four innings, and for a moment, it seemed they might be the first team to claw back from an 0-3 World Series deficit to force a Game 6. But the same issues that haunted them all year resurfaced, and the Dodgers seized their opportunity.

After the game, Rizzo put it politely, calling it “a miscommunication on coverage,” but admitted that pitchers are always trained to hustle over to first base “no matter what.” Regardless, Betts was safe, another run scored, and momentum shifted. The next batter, Freddie Freeman, broke his record streak of consecutive World Series games with a home run but still delivered, singling to score two more Dodgers. Left fielder Teoscar Hernández then launched a cutter off the center-field wall, tying the game and deflating the once-rowdy Yankee Stadium crowd of nearly 50,000. In that inning alone, the Dodgers scored five unearned runs, turning the tide with each Yankee miscue.

The Yankees tried to reclaim control, briefly retaking the lead with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. But the Dodgers answered back, with Ohtani, nursing a partially dislocated shoulder, showing his resilience. Swinging at the first pitch he saw, Ohtani drew catcher’s interference from Austin Wells, earning a free base. Moments later, Betts lifted a fly ball to center, sending the go-ahead run home. By the ninth, the Yankees’ troubles only continued, with closer Luke Weaver committing a balk by making an extra disengagement from the mound—an almost symbolic misstep for a team that struggled all night with fundamentals.

After the final out, a quiet hung over the Yankees’ clubhouse as players prepared to say goodbye, pondering what might come next. Many players face uncertain futures with the team. Right fielder Juan Soto will hit free agency and could command a record-breaking contract. Gleyber Torres, Alex Verdugo, and setup man Clay Holmes will also be on the market, and the team holds a $17 million option on Rizzo. There’s a feeling that some roster shakeup might not be the worst thing. Since Judge took on a central role, the Yankees haven’t won a playoff series against anyone outside the AL Central.

Judge, typically vocal on the field, struggled to get anything going at the plate this postseason, and it was Soto who was left trying to rally the team offensively. For all of Soto’s talent, he’ll need to become more of a leader if he returns next year. The Yankees’ frustrating World Series performance highlighted their lack of consistency and leadership on the field. Despite all the talent, they never seemed able to string together the level of baseball they were capable of, especially in key moments.

Here’s the thing folks: Judge’s postgame comments were reserved, expressing the need for fewer mistakes without offering specifics on how to make that happen. Asked directly how a team limits mistakes, he hesitated, “It’s hard to do,” he admitted. “Don’t let it happen. I don’t have a good answer for you.” He now has an offseason to think about it, three days longer than he’d hoped, but maybe that time will lead to some solutions.

With that… The Yankees’ offseason will be crucial. Bringing Soto back or finding a replacement with his offensive prowess will be key. But more than raw talent, they’ll need players who can avoid the lapses that defined their season and let them down when it mattered most. It’s possible this team needs more than a roster upgrade; they need a mental reset and some focus on the fundamentals that kept slipping away.

If you cannot play with them, then root for them.