Yankees On the Brink of Extinction as They Flop in Game 3

I never expected the Yankees to beat the Dodgers in this series for one simple reason: The Dodgers are just a much better team. However, I did not expect the Yankees to get swept, but that’s now, as Aaron Boone loves to say, “right in front of us.” What a colossal disappointment this World Series has been. Here’s my thoughts on Game 3. Lets get to it.

Oct. 28: Dodgers 4, Yankees 2

Unlike many of you who were smart enough to not waste 3 ½ hours of your life Monday night, I watched the entirety of Game 3. Hey, these are the sacrifices we sports writers and newsletter writers have to make. Do you know how many Bills games I covered during the drought years when I wish I could have walked out of the press box after the halftime meal and gone home?

Such was my fate watching the Dodgers embarrass the Yankees yet again, this time in front of a crowd that was electric at the start, and then spent the rest of the night moaning, groaning and swearing at their pathetic pinstriped putzes.

All you needed to do was watch the first inning, because the story was told right there in the first 20 minutes of the evening.

I had a hunch about Clarke Schmidt. For some reason, I thought he was going to be able to step up in a big spot and give the Yankees a solid start, and then perhaps his teammates would be inspired enough to give him some run support and get back into this thing. Yeah, I blew that one because Schmidt had nothing.

His first four pitches to Shohei Ohtani were balls and right there, you just knew it wasn’t going to go well. He got Mookie Betts on a fly ball, but then on a 1-2 pitch to the most destructive hitter right now in the Dodgers lineup, Schmidt laid a 93 mph fastball on the inner half of the plate to Freddie Freeman, right where the big first baseman loves it. Schmidt should have just put it on a tee, for Christ’s sake. Naturally, Freeman swung and sent the ball soaring into the right-field bleachers. He has now homered in all three games, and he tied an MLB record by homering in five straight World Series games dating back to 2021 when he was with the Braves.

It was 15 pitches into the game, and it was already over because for the rest of the night, the Yankees did what the Yankees always do in the postseason - they looked like a bunch of Little Leaguers swinging toothpicks as bats. They are hitting .186 with a .578 OPS in the World Series as a team, and through 12 postseason games it’s .224 with a .713 OPS.

Monday, they were mercilessly overmatched by Walker Buehler who is coming off his second career Tommy John surgery and had a 5.38 ERA in the regular season, then by a parade of six relievers until Alex Verdugo, down to the final out in the bottom of the ninth, hit a meaningless two-run homer off Michael Kopech. It was another one of those fake Yankees rallies that gets the fans excited, only to end exactly the way you knew it would as Gleyber Torres grounded out, leaving Juan Soto in the on-deck circle as the potential tying run.

“Hopefully we can go be this amazing story and shock the world,” Aaron Boone said, ever the foolish optimist. Now let’s hear from the other foolish optimist, the disappearing act formerly known an Aaron Judge, who did a spot on Boone impression by saying, “All it takes is one. All it takes is one swing, one at-bat, one play and everything changes for us.” Save it fellas.

As I said, I hope you didn’t waste your entire night on this shit show. If you flipped the channel and you still care to read about the nothingness you missed, here you go.

Here are my observations:

➤ So, after that rough first inning, it was incumbent on the Yankees to answer right back. And Torres did what he has done this entire postseason in the first inning; he got on base in the leadoff spot, walking on a 3-2 pitch. OK, good start, right, with the big guys coming up - well, two of the big guys. Instead, big guy Soto lined out to left, former big guy but now small, small, small guy Judge struck out, and big guy Giancarlo Stanton grounded out and that was it.

➤ Judge - who has essentially ruined his MVP season with his choke job in October - has come up with at least one runner on base in the first inning in 10 of the Yankees’ 12 postseason games, and he’s 0-for-10 with seven strikeouts, and overall he’s now 6-for-43 in the postseason with 20 whiffs. As I said, small, small, small. “I’m not doing my job right now,” Judge said. “Got to pick it up. I didn’t get any hits. I didn’t drive anybody in. I’ve got to get something done up there.”

➤ Schmidt looked like he reset himself with a 1-2-3 second, but then he got right back into trouble and didn’t even get out of the third. Tommy Edman walked to start the inning, he moved to second on a groundout by Ohtani, and then scored on Betts’ single to make it 3-0. When Schmidt walked Freeman and Max Muncy, he was done, having faced 14 batters and allowing six of them to reach base.

➤ The Dodgers’ final run came in the sixth off Jake Cousins. Gavin Lux is probably the weakest spot in the Dodgers’ order, so what does Cousins do? He gives him a free base by hitting him with a pitch. Back in the fourth, Lux drew a leadoff walk from Mark Leiter Jr. who had taken over for Schmidt, raced to third on a single to Kike Hernandez, but when Tommy Edman tried to squeeze him home with a bunt, Leiter fielded and fed Jose Trevino who tagged Lux out on a play that needed instant replay to confirm. Now in the sixth, Lux was at it again only this time after he stole second on noodle-armed Trevino, he scored on Kike Hernandez’ single. Imagine that, get on base, steal a bag, and a batter goes to the opposite field rather than swinging for the fences, and the Dodgers manufacture a perfect baseball run, something the Yankees are incapable of doing.

➤ The Yankees remained in their offensive coma until the ninth when Anthony Rizzo walked and Verdugo homered. They finished with a measly five hits - the homer, three singles and a Stanton double. Oh, they drew six walks, but that made no difference because everyone not named Stanton (2-for-4) went 3-for-27. The only time they had two men on base at the same time came in the sixth, but Jazz Chisholm grounded out, and then in the seventh when Torres struck out on a bad call by the umpire.

➤ The only real chance for a run in the first eight innings came in the fourth when Stanton doubled, and with two outs Anthony Volpe ripped a single to left. Unfortunately, he ripped it too hard and it was right at Teoscar Hernandez. Ignoring those two facts, not to mention that Stanton hadn’t even touched third when Hernandez fielded the ball, third base coach Luis Rojas made another brain dead decision - something he’s become quite astute at this season - as he waved Stanton home from second base. Let me repeat myself, he waved home Stanton, a man who couldn’t beat a geriatric around the track at the YMCA. To the surprise of no one in the crowd of 49,000-plus, and the millions of us still watching on TV, Hernandez gunned down Stanton so the score stayed 3-0.

➤ I get trying to be aggressive because the Yankees are so hopeless on offense, but you need to have some common sense, too. Rojas has to know that he can’t ever, ever, ever send Stanton in that situation, and probably not Torres, either. Anyone else, sure, but not those two slow pokes. “Tough when you’re behind a few there, but a perfect throw is able to get him. I thought G had a pretty good jump and move around third base,” Boone said, once again sounding like a fool every time he opens his mouth because when has Stanton ever gotten a good jump or looked like he was moving well?

➤ Boone benched hopeless Austin Wells, even with Buehler being a righty. Of course, Trevino was no better as he went 0-for-2 before Wells entered as a pinch hitter and went 0-for-2.

➤ Hey, Nestor Cortes faced five guys in the middle of the game, and got four of them out including Ohtani and Betts, the exception being Freeman who reached on an error by Chisholm. Where the hell was that in the 10th inning of Game 1, Nestor? By night’s end, Boone used seven relievers thanks to Schmidt’s short outing, including all three of his high leverage guys, Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver.

➤ One of the big talking points before the series was that the Yankees would have the advantage in starting pitching. Through three games, their starters’ ERA is 6.00 while Los Angeles’ is 1.62. In Game 4 Tuesday night, inconsistent Luis Gil - who made it through four shaky innings against the weak-hitting Guardians in his only career postseason start on Oct. 18 - will start for the Yankees, while the Dodgers, who don’t have a fourth starter, will go with a bullpen game and Dave Roberts has not yet named the opener.

➤ Each of the past nine teams to take a 3-0 lead in the World Series have completed a sweep. The last team to force a Game 5 was the 1970 Cincinnati Reds against the Baltimore Orioles. A team has never forced a Game 6 after trailing 3-0. “It’s not gonna be easy,” Rizzo said, trying his hand at channeling his inner Boone. “We’ve got to pull some inspiration from somewhere. It’s happened before, teams have come back before. It’s gonna sting tonight, but tomorrow, when we show up, we’ll be ready to play. I don’t see us laying down tomorrow.”

➤ Here was Verdugo’s Boone impression: “No one said this was going to be easy. We understood what was expected from us and how hard this was going to be. We’ve just got to stick together, block out that noise. I know how good this team is, and if that team wins three in a row, why can’t we win three in a row?”