The New York Yankees were cruising toward a Game 5 victory Wednesday night, looking to send the World Series back west on a two-game winning streak.
They were up five runs and had seemingly taken the momentum in the series. They had their ace on the mound, who was pitching as well as he had all season. Hope was growing in the Bronx.
Then the fifth inning happened.
The Yankees made three huge fielding mistakes in the top of the inning, opening the door for the Los Angeles Dodgers to come back and ultimately win the World Series. New York, leading 5-0, gave up five runs in an instantaneously infamous inning.
All five runs came with two outs. And all five runs were unearned for starter Gerrit Cole.
“We just took advantage of every mistake that they made that inning,” Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández said postgame. “We put some good at-bats together. We put the ball in play. A lot of people say ‘when you put the ball in play, things might happen.’ It happened to us in that inning and we scored five runs.”
Here’s what happened.
After a Kiké Hernández single — the Dodgers’ first hit of the night — Tommy Edman lined a ball into center field that was dropped by Aaron Judge.
That put Edman at first and Hernández at second.
Then Will Smith hit a ground ball to short, but Anthony Volpe’s throw bounced to Jazz Chisholm at third base. He couldn’t hold on for the force-out, loading the bases for Los Angeles with no one out.
Cole responded by striking out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. All the fans in the Bronx let out a breath. It appeared Cole was going to escape the inning without surrendering a run.
But then Mookie Betts hit what should have been an inning-ending grounder to first base — except Anthony Rizzo expected Cole to cover the bag as he fielded the ball.
Cole never ran over, Betts reached safely, and the Dodgers were finally on the board.
With the Dodgers having finally cracked through after the three miscues, World Series MVP Freddie Freeman came to the plate and hit a two-run single with the bases still loaded.
Then a two-run double from Teoscar Hernández one batter later tied the game.
Cole threw 38 pitches in the inning, facing 10 batters and giving up four hits.
Yes, the Yankees still had five more times at bat to make up for their disastrous fifth.
But had they simply made some routine plays in the field, they’d almost certainly be on their way to Los Angeles for Game 6.
