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Yankees implode with 3 defensive blunders in 5th inning of Game 5

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Aaron Judge committing an error in the outfield

Just when things were going great for the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, they hit the self-destruct button in the worst possible way.

The Yankees turned a 5-0 lead over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday into a tied 5-5 ballgame in the blink of an eye. It was all thanks to some very embarrassing Larry, Moe, and Curly defense by the Yankees in the top of the fifth inning.

The trouble began when Yankees star Aaron Judge botched a routine fly ball to center field by Dodgers infielder Tommy Edman with a runner on first and nobody out. Judge jogged in nonchalantly and got under the ball … but just booted it. The ball glanced off his glove and dropped in the outfield grass, resulting in first and second with no one out for the Dodgers.

It got even worse with the next batter, Will Smith, who hit a groundball to shortstop Anthony Volpe. Though Volpe was able to field the ball, he tried to throw it to third to get the lead runner and ended up bouncing it in to third baseman Jazz Chisholm, who couldn’t make the play. Thus, everybody was safe for the Dodgers with still no one out.

Yankees starter Gerrit Cole, who had been sailing on Easy Street up to that point of the contest, then stepped up and struck out both Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani with the bases loaded. He almost got out of the jam with no damage too. But when No. 2 hitter Mookie Betts smacked a groundball to first baseman Anthony Rizzo, Cole did not run to cover the bag, and Betts got in there safely (allowing a run to score).

The Dodgers capitalized on the opportunity and got back-to-back RBI hits from Freddie Freeman (a two-run single) and Teoscar Hernandez (a two-run double) on the two very next at-bats. All of a sudden, a 5-0 laugher was now a 5-5 game.

If only one of those awful blunders had not happened and resulted in even just one out, the Dodgers would not have scored in that half-inning. But by stringing all three of them together in succession, the Yankees allowed the Dodgers to hang five runs on them (none of which went down as earned runs for Cole).

It is very rare to see that kind of total implosion in a single half-inning by three separate players on a team, especially for a team that was good enough to make it to the World Series. But unfortunately, defensive blunders were an Achilles heel for the Yankees throughout the regular season (as we saw on multiple occasions).

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