Aaron Judge laments crucial mistake that erased breakout World Series moment: ‘Got to make the play’
Aaron Judge’s bat finally woke up. He made a fantastic leaping grab in the outfield. But it was the play he didn’t come up with that will haunt him this offseason.
He was unable to come up with a Tommy Edman line drive with a runner on and nobody out in the fifth inning, an error that led to a five-run frame for the Dodgers in their World Series-clinching, 7-6 victory over the Yankees in Game 5 in The Bronx on Wednesday night.
“That doesn’t happen, I think we got a different story tonight,” Judge said. Asked what went wrong, he said: “I just didn’t make it.”
Judge had company in the fifth. Anthony Volpe made an error immediately after and with a chance to get out of the inning unscathed, Gerrit Cole failed to cover first base on a slowly hit grounder by Mookie Betts to Anthony Rizzo.
The floodgates opened from there, but it all started with the Judge drop, as five unearned runs crossed against Gerrit Cole.
“It comes back to me,” Judge said. “I’ve got to make the play and probably the other two don’t happen.”
It wiped away an otherwise big night from the almost-certain American League MVP. He reached base four times, and got the Stadium revved up with a two-run first-inning blast to right-center field.
“M-V-P” chants followed for Judge, who had struggled for much of the postseason. He doubled in the eighth with one out and the Yankees down a run. But they couldn’t push the tying run across.
In the fourth, Judge made a big-time play, corralling a Freddie Freeman drive as he crashed into the fence in center field at full speed. It saved a run. But then came the fifth. The Edman drive that Judge couldn’t catch, an error that seemed to wake up the Dodgers.
Instead of getting ready to board a plane back to Los Angeles, the Yankees’ season ended Wednesday night. Who knows how Game 5 goes if Judge doesn’t drop that liner.
It was an unfortunate ending to a forgettable postseason for Judge, one in which he hit .184 and struck out 20 times in 49 at-bats. He’s clearly one of the top two or three players in the sport. But October success has proven elusive for him. That trend continued Wednesday night.
“I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me til the day I die, probably,” 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’ve got a lot of battle scars, but also a lot of victories, too.”
