Yankee Stadium will host its first World Series game in 15 years on Monday, but will it actually feel like a party?
The Yankees headed home in a 2-0 series deficit after a 4-2 loss to the Dodgers in Game 2 on Saturday night in which their offense was lifeless until the ninth inning, when their rally was too little, too late.
The Game 2 loss only made falling in Game 1 more regrettable. On Friday, they had two crucial defensive miscues that cost them and a few strategic decisions that were left for second-guessing. On Saturday, they straight up got beat.
With Game 3 set for Monday night in The Bronx — and the Dodgers waiting to find out more on Shohei Ohtani’s shoulder after he suffered a subluxation trying to steal second in the eighth inning Saturday — the Yankees’ season hangs in the balance.
In the meantime, a rundown on Game 2:
— The Yankees are not going to do anything if they don’t get Aaron Judge back looking like Aaron Judge. The likely AL MVP went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts Saturday and is now 1-for-9 in the World Series and 6-for-40 with 19 strikeouts this October.
There is still time to flip the script, but for now, Judge is ending the season the way he started it. Of course, in between were five months of red-hot offense with historic numbers, but Judge has fallen back into a slump at the worst time over these first 11 playoff games — reminiscent of a 6-for-43 with 20 strikeouts stretch he had in 11 games from April 15 to April 26, only these at-bats come with a heck of a lot more weight.
Judge was booed at home during the 2022 ALDS, on the heels of his record-breaking 62-homer season. A few empty at-bats on Monday night and history could repeat itself. Or perhaps he changes the narrative with one big swing.
But during Judge’s struggles this postseason, in which he has expanded the zone and gotten hurt by low off-speed pitches, one thing has stood out in particular. During the regular season, Judge hit 18 of his 58 home runs in the first inning while batting .359 with a 1.307 OPS. In 11 first innings in these playoffs, Judge is 0-for-10 with six strikeouts and a hit by pitch. He has come to the plate with runners in scoring position seven times in 11 first innings and has not been able to do anything with it. The more it happens, the more deflating it threatens to be.
The Yankees would take Judge’s bat delivering like it is capable of in any inning at this point. But maybe getting off on the right foot Monday could make a difference.
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— So much for the perceived rotation advantage the Yankees held coming into the series.
Some of it was just by nature of having four starters compared to the Dodgers’ three, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot when Carlos Rodon is only lasting 3 ⅓ innings in Game 2 on a night when he was completely outdone by Yoshinobu Yamamoto (6 ⅓ innings of one-hit, one-run ball).
Through two games, the Yankees’ bullpen has had to throw 8 ⅓ innings compared to the Dodgers’ 7 ⅓. The Dodgers still have to throw a bullpen game in Game 4, but so far, their starting pitching has given them everything they could have asked for between Jack Flaherty and Yamamoto.
Rodon got hurt with his fastball on Saturday, as it was responsible for all three of the home runs he gave up — to Tommy Edman in the second inning and then back-to-back shots from Teoscar Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the third. In fact, Rodon gave up four straight hits in the third inning and all of them came off his fastball.
— Tim Hill’s performance in Game 2 won’t quiet any of the second-guessing from Game 1. The lefty reliever, who was warming next to Nestor Cortes on Friday night when Cortes was called on for the 10th inning and eventually gave up the walk-off grand slam to Freeman, entered Saturday’s game in the fifth inning and immediately got Freeman to pop out.
That was the first of four straight batters Hill retired on 14 pitches. That does not mean he would have breezed through Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freeman in the 10th inning on Friday night. But it at least makes you think “What if?” again.
— As if being down 2-0 in the World Series wasn’t bad enough, some of the key Dodgers inflicting pain on the Yankees are ones that the Yankees tried to get their hands on either at the trade deadline this summer (Flaherty and Edman) or last offseason (Yamamoto).
For the second time this year, Yamamoto shoved against the Yankees. In June at Yankee Stadium, he tossed seven shutout innings against a lineup that was without Juan Soto. On Saturday night, the only hit he allowed across 6 ⅓ innings was a solo homer to Soto.
The Yankees’ best at-bats of the night came in the ninth inning when they nearly cracked Blake Treinen (who they have now scored off of in back-to-back games). But he and Alex Vesia kept the damage to one run.
Quick hits
Teams that have gone up 2-0 in the World Series have gone on to win it 80.4 percent of the time (45 out of 57). The Yankees are responsible for two of the 12 teams that came back from a 2-0 deficit to win the World Series (1996, 1978, 1958 and 1956). Two of those came against the Dodgers. … Soto has now hit four home runs this postseason, all of them either tying the game or giving the Yankees the lead.
