BRONX, NY — A series of cataclysmic mistakes ended the New York Yankees’ season and crowned the Los Angeles Dodgers as 2024 World Series champions by pulling off the largest comeback in Fall Classic history with a 7-6 victory in Game 5 on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.
Overturning deficits of 5-0 and 6-5 thanks to a series of Yankees errors, the Dodgers scratched two runs across in the top of the eighth inning off relievers Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver thanks to sacrifice flies by Gavin Lux and Mookie Betts to take the lead.
“I’m heartbroken,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It doesn’t take away my pride of what that room means to me and what that group forged this year, and what we’ve been through to get here. But I’m heartbroken. I’m heartbroken, and I’m heartbroken for those guys that poured so much into this. The ending is cruel. It always is.”
Enrique Hernandez and Tommy Edman led the inning off with singles — the latter of the broken-bat infield variety. Weaver then walked Will Smith to load the bases with no outs. Lux tied the game, leaving runners at the corners with one out before the struggling and injured Shohei Ohtani was awarded first base after he was interfered with by catcher Austin Wells to re-load the bases.
Betts sent a long fly ball to center to put the Dodgers ahead for what proved to be the game-winner.
The Dodgers have won their eighth championship in franchise history and their second since 2020. Seven of the eight have come since the franchise relocated from Brooklyn following the 1957 season. It is also the fourth time in 12 World Series meetings that they have dethroned the Yankees.
The Yankees squandered an early five-run lead by allowing five runs in the fifth inning behind uncharacteristically poor defense, featuring two errors and one mental gaffe by New York ace Gerrit Cole that allowed the Dodgers to send 10 men to the plate.
“Yeah, just we didn’t take care of the ball well enough in that inning,” Boone said. “Against a great team like that, they took advantage.”
After being no-hit by Cole through four innings, the Dodgers picked up their first hit of the night to lead off the fifth inning when Enrique Hernandez singled — and then New York fell apart.
Edman’s soft floater to center, a can of corn, was dropped by Judge.
“I just missed it,” Judge said, unable to divulge further.
Will Smith followed with a grounder to shortstop that prompted Volpe to try and get the force at third, but his throw was bounced to Chisholm and could not be reeled in to load the bases.
“The play to Volpe, the right move obviously going to third, a little bit of a short hop over there at to third, didn’t complete the play,” Boone said.
Cole got Ohtani swinging for the second out and appeared to get out of it by inducing a Betts ground ball to first. However, the slow roller did not give Anthony Rizzo enough time to beat Betts to the bag, and Cole did not cover first to bring in Los Angeles’ opening run.
“I think I took a bad angle to the ball,” Cole said. “I wasn’t really sure off the bat how har he hit it. I took a direct angle as if to cut it off. I just didn’t know how hard he hit it. By the time the ball got by me, I wasn’t in a position to cover first.”
The red-hot Freddie Freeman lined a two-strike single to center to plate two more and bring the Dodgers within two before Teoscar Hernandez tied it up with a double to dead center over the head of Judge.
All five runs were unearned.
“It was a wild inning,” Cole said. “They made it tough on us. Just kept putting the ball in play, grinding pitch after pitch. At the end, it almost felt like a win to just not really give up the lead… Boy, it was a tough one, though.”
Dodgers reliever Brusdar Graterol walked a pair and induced a fielder’s choice to put runners at the corners, Giancarlo Stanton put the Yankees up 6-5 with a sacrifice fly one inning later.
A long-awaited home run by Aaron Judge, along with two more round-trippers from Jazz Chisholm and Stanton, helped the Yankees build a five-run lead by the third inning.
Judge finally opened his World Series ledger to put the Yankees up in a flash. After Flaherty walked Soto, he grooved a first-pitch fastball middle-middle to Judge, who, despite his well-documented and arduous struggles, could not miss that one. He sent it 403 feet into the right-center field seats to give the Yankees a 2-0 lead and pick up his first-career Fall Classic round-tripper. He had gone his previous 25 at-bats without a homer.
Chisholm made it a three-run lead just four pitches later when he turned on another Flaherty fastball that sat middle-middle and launched it into the right-field seats.
It was the 14th time in postseason history the Yankees went back-to-back in a postseason game and the fifth time in a World Series game.
Alex Verdugo put the Yankees up 4-0 with a one-out single that scored Anthony Volpe, who doubled to lead off the frame, to run Flaherty out of the game and force the Dodgers to throw their second bullpen game in as many nights.
Stanton made it 5-0 with a lead-off home run in the third, a laser to right-center off reliever Ryan Brasier. His seventh home run of these playoffs set a single-postseason Yankees record. He also drew level with Mickey Mantle for the third-most career postseason home runs in franchise history (18).
After the Dodgers’ big fifth inning, Stanton re-delivered the lead to the Yankees in the sixth with a sacrifice fly that scored Soto. They proceeded to load the bases with two outs, but Volpe grounded out to second.
Cole recorded the first two outs of the seventh inning before getting the hook at 108 pitches when he walked Freeman. Holmes walked Teoscar Hernandez but struck out Max Muncy to keep the slim lead intact through seven.
It came undone for Holmes quickly in the eighth after loading the bases, and Weaver could not escape.
“This is as bad as it gets,” Cole said. “It’s the worst feeling you can have. You have to keep willing yourself to believe to give yourself a chance. You keep pushing, keep pushing, but we came up short. It’s just brutal.”
The Yankees put two men on with one out in the bottom of the eighth, but Dodgers closer Blaker Treinen got Stanton to pop out to right and Rizzo flailing at a slider to move his side within three outs of a title.
Starting pitcher Walker Buehler, who won Game 3 on Monday and was called on to reprieve a bullpen that had been emptied by Dave Roberts over the last two games, closed things out to cue Los Angeles celebrations on both coasts.
