2025
WORLD SERIES LOSS
In
reviewing our 4th loss from Game 5 of this year’s World Series, let
me first start off with the few positives:
I
always appreciate progress, and this past season the Yankees certainly
demonstrated progress. They made it to the
final round, the World Series, meaning they qualified as the best team in the
American League (winning the American League Pennant/ trophy) which qualified them
at the highest position for the playoffs in the American League. That’s a lot better than the prior season in
which they failed to even make the playoffs!
In
the ALCS, they defeated the Cleveland Guardians in 5 games (in a potential
7-games’ series). Some of the main
highlights included a 3-run homer by Juan Soto in the 5th game’s 10th
inning with 2 outs! We saw some key homeruns
from Judge and Wells, while also seeing superb performances from the
aforementioned Soto (3 homeruns/6 RBIs) and Stanton (4 homeruns/11 RBIs/the
ALCS MVP).
As
for any positives from the World Series, Soto hit another homerun and Stanton
hit 2. Joining the homerun contributions
were Jazz Chisholm, Jr. (1), Judge (1), Gleyber (1), Verdugo (1), and Volpe
(1). From a pitching standpoint, Gerrit
Cole started 2 games with a collective 0.947 WHIP which was great from our ace.
We also had some positive pitching efforts from relievers Clay Holmes (0.692
WHIP), Luke Weaver (0.400 WHIP), and Tim Hill( 0.750) WHIP. Oh, and we won “a” game (Game 4) with a score
of 11-4!
Now
for the negatives which certainly outweighed the positives for all of the
Yankees’ fans, including me:
Let’s
start with some very disappointing batting averages from Anthony Rizzo (.125), Gleyber Torres (.143), Austin Wells (.176), and Aaron
Judge (.222). {Luckily Juan Soto hit .313 and Anthony Volpe hit a decent .250.} Against us, was the "Main Man" of the series who happened to wear a Dodgers’ uniform, Freddie
Freeman (who has always been a great player). He batted .300, hit 4 homeruns,
and drove in 12 runs! “Our” first
baseman hit a whopping .125 (as noted above) with only 2 hits in 16 at-bats and
0 homeruns, 0 RBIs, 0 extra base hits, and 7 strikeouts. He was also part of the awful 5th
inning of Game 5 in which most of the team looked like the “Bad News Bears”. Gerrit Cole was pitching a no-hitter into the
5th inning when he gave up his first hit (to Kiké Hernández) then…
Judge
was too busy looking at Kiké running the bases during a routine fly ball to him
and he totally missed the simple catch.
Following that, Will Smith grounded “out” to Volpe who threw the ball
short of third base making it difficult for Jazz to attain an actual out. That created a bases-loaded situation with zero outs. Cole seemed to still stay overly
focused on the batters (like Andy Pettitte, but without the cap over the
eyebrows). He proceeded to strike out Gavin
Lux and Shohei Ohtani. That created
brief relief to us fans until Mookie Betts weakly grounded “out” towards the left
side of first base. It was then that Rizzo
fielded the ball about 8 feet from the bag and chose to wait for Cole (who at
that time did not run enough and who was parallel to Betts, a speedy runner). I’ve been watching Rizzo for a long time over
the years and he typically avoids taking on those plays alone. He, instead, tries to get a 3-1 play (first
baseman to the pitcher) at first base.
Almost all of the other first basemen are better at solely making those plays
themselves. While Cole could have been
better positioned, I realize Betts has a lot of speed to outrun and I also give
credit to Cole for his pitching performance and total concentration (as
mentioned) on the batters. On the other
hand, Rizzo was right there in the vicinity already and made his typical yet uncommon
and illogical choice as Betts was pouring on more speed towards the base right
in front of his eyes. He could have even
taken a few steps towards first base and lunged to touch the base with the ball
in his hand or glove. Eventually, during that inning, the Dodgers tied the game at 5-5! The Yankees would ultimately lose the game 7-6 and the World Series 4 games to 1.
I
anticipate my next article to be about the Yankees’ players who will be
reaching free agency. In that article, I
will certainly offer my opinions of who I want to leave. Obviously, Rizzo will be on that list from my
perspective as I’ve had enough of his diminished all-around abilities!! Oh, and as usual, I’ve also had enough of
Boone and Cashman (the latter has been expressed so many times by me already,
but I’m obviously not done griping)!
