The Yankees’ 5th inning from hell was a World Series choke-job for the ages

The World Series was headed back to Los Angeles.

Facing a do-or-die Game 5 in the 2024 World Series, the New York Yankees jumped on the Los Angeles Dodgers early Wednesday night, putting three runs on the board in the bottom of the first inning thanks to home runs from Aaron Judge and Jazz Chisholm Jr. With New York adding a run in both the second and the third innings, the Yankees took a 5-0 lead to the top of the fifth inning.

New York starter Gerrit Cole was cruising, having held the Dodgers scoreless through the first four innings. But then came a fifth inning that and the Yankees, and their fans, will have a long cold winter to think about.

It started innocently enough, with Kiké Hernandez leading off the inning with a single to right field. That brought shortstop Tommy Edman to the plate, who lifted a soft liner into center field, bringing in a charging Judge to make what looked like an easy catch.

Only it deflected off his glove:

Judge still had a chance to get Hernandez out at second, who had to hold up with the ball in the air, but the Dodgers outfielder beat Judge’s throw into second, and Los Angeles had a pair of runners on with nobody out.

Catcher Will Smith was the next Dodgers batter, who pulled a slider from Cole into the hole between third and short. Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe, sliding over to his right, fielded the grounder cleanly and made the right decision to throw to Chisholm at third for the forceout.

Only, the throw was in the dirt and Hernandez was safe at third, loading the bases for the Dodgers. The play was scored an error on the throw by Volpe:

Cole got the next two outs, striking out both Gavin Lux and leadoff hitter Shohei Ohtani. That brought Mookie Betts to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs, putting Cole just one more out away from getting out of the inning.

Cole induced a soft grounder to Anthony Rizzo on another slider working away from the hitter, but the Yankees could not complete the play:

After the game, Rizzo explained that the ball was spinning away from him a bit.

“The balls off the bat against a righty, they are spinning,” Rizzo said. “I was going one way and the ball kicked another way, so you have just got to really follow it all the way because you don’t know what the ball is going to do.”

He also seemed to point a finger at Cole for not covering first on the play.

“Pitchers are always taught to get over no matter what,” Rizzo said. “It was just a weird spinning play.”

That made the score 5-1 New York, and that is when the floodgates opened. World Series MVP Freddie Freeman singled into center, plating two more runs and making the score 5-3:

Then Teoscar Hernández followed Freeman with a two-run double to center, knotting the game at 5-5:

While the Yankees would push a run across in the sixth inning to take a 6-5 lead, Los Angeles scored a pair of runs in the top of the eighth, and then closed out the game to take the series.

And leave the Yankees, and their fans, wondering what might have been.