Dodgers Win World Series In Game 5, Yankees Blow Five-Run Lead In Disastrous Finale

The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 7-6 in Game 5 to win the World Series Wednesday night. The Yankees blew a five-run lead at home and could only watch on as Los Angeles celebrated its eight title victory in front of sellout Yankee Stadium crowd.

“I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me until I die, probably,” Yankees slugger Aaron Judge told reporters after the game. “I think just like every other loss, you know, those things don’t go away. They’re battle scars along the way. And, you know, hopefully when my career is over, we got a lot a battle scars but a lot of victories along the way too.”

After avoiding a sweep in an 11-4 blowout win Tuesday, the Yankees seemed intent on continuing their impossible march early in Game 5. Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton all homered in the first two frames to put the Bombers ahead 5-0. Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty exited with just one out in the second, forcing Los Angeles to turn to its bullpen for another lengthy assignment. 

On the other side, fans in the Bronx were finally electrified. They had a Game 4 win under their belts. New York ace Gerrit Cole was cruising with run support, starting Game 5 with four flawless innings. Judge, dead silent for the entire series, was finally starting to hit like an MVP. With a few more quiet Los Angeles frames, the Yankees’ impossible dream of a reverse sweep could have been worth a whisper. Then the fifth inning came and went with all the grace of a six-car pileup on the Grand Concourse.

Judge kicked off the circus routine by dropping an easy line drive to center field, putting runners on first and second. On the very next play, shortstop Anthony Volpe tried to get the lead runner out on a ground ball but spiked the throw to third, loading the bases with no outs. Cole, battling through the poor play behind him, managed to strike out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani for two gutsy outs. A soft grounder down the first base line from Mookie Betts should have ended the inning.

But after coming all the way back from two fielding errors behind him, Cole suffered his own lapse. He failed to cover first base, allowing Betts to reach first, drive in a run and prolong the inning. The Dodgers didn’t need any favors from there; Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernandez connected for back-to-back two-RBI knocks and Los Angeles tied the game with five unearned runs.

The Yankees retook the lead in the bottom of the sixth inning and Cole carried on in heroic fashion, throwing 108 pitching in 6.2 innings without allowing an earned run. In a battle of the bullpens from there, however, New York folded almost immediately, loading the bases in the sixth and seventh innings and allowing two runs on sacrifice flies in the latter frame. With a 7-6 lead, the Dodgers closed out the game to earn their eighth World Title.

Freeman earned World Series MVP honors in overwhelming fashion, as the first baseman overcame an injury to hit four home runs and earn 12 RBIs across five games against New York. In a World Series billed as a star-studded matchup between the sport’s most famous franchises, Freeman was the only star to live up to those sky-high expectations.

“It seems like we hit every speed bump possible over the course of this year,” Freeman said after the game. “And to overcome what we did as a group of guys, it’s special. This is what we start out to do every single spring training is to win a championship. I think it’s the hardest thing to do in sports because you just never know what’s going to happen.”

Juan Soto, Judge’s slugging counterpart all season, was far from the Yankees’ biggest problem in the postseason, but the team’s collective failure is sure to make his impending free agency a nightmare. After Game 5, Soto told reporters that he will hear offers from all 30 MLB teams, and reports suggest that he will likely take the best offer. A meeting with Mets owner Steve Cohen in Queens is on the horizon and could potentially take a massive chunk out of the Yankees’ lineup in 2025.

Judge is sure to take the vast majority of the blame for the Yankees’ postseason failure; after batting .322 with 58 home runs in the regular season, the presumptive A.L. MVP batted 4-for-18 in the World Series. Before Game 5, he batted 2-for-15, and even after finally coming alive at the plate, his final game this season will be remembered for his costly error in center field that kickstarted the Dodgers’ comeback.

Despite the obvious blame on Judge for the Yankees’ shortcomings, he was not the only MVP candidate to have a quiet World Series. Ohtani was supposed to be the titan on the other side of the matchup, but he actually performed worse than Judge, going 2-for-19 without an RBI. 

In the end, the 2024 World Series was only partially determined by clutch play from immense talents. For the most part, it was a far more fundamental battle, one in which Los Angeles systematically took advantage of the New York’s sloppy play on the way to an unexpected rout. 

The team didn’t need Ohtani to be sharp; Freeman motored the team to consistent leads, and the pitching staff held a hapless Yankees lineup in check for the most part. It may have made for less compelling viewing than the offensive shootout some expected, but the Dodgers proved to be the cleaner team and took full advantage of the Yankees’ collective no-show. It was a decisive, if abrupt, triumph.

Article by Patrick Moquin