Thoughts after Game 1 of the 2024 World Series

Losing a Gerrit Cole start – an effective Gerrit Cole start – is a rough way to begin the World Series. The Yankees must now beat the best team in baseball four times in six games, and Cole will only start one of the six. Friday’s 6-3 walk-off loss puts the Yankees in a 1-0 series hole. Historically, teams that win Game 1 in a best-of-seven have gone on to win the series 64% of the time. Winning Game 2 and escaping Los Angeles with a split is a must.

Game 2 on Saturday: LHP Carlos Rodón vs. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8pm ET on FOX)

1. Nestor? Nestor??? Aaron Boone had a pretty good ALDS and ALCS, and by that I mean he did not make any egregious mistakes, and his players made him look smart. That changed in Game 1. I didn’t mind the decision to pull Gerrit Cole at 88 pitches in the seventh inning, I just didn’t like bringing in Clay Holmes with a runner on base. The Yankees did ultimately escape that inning unscathed.

In the tenth inning though, Boone went to Nestor Cortes – Nestor Cortes! – to face three Hall of Famers with the game on the line. Nestor had not pitched since Sept. 18th because of a flexor strain. He wasn’t on the ALDS or ALCS rosters, but he’s healthy enough to be on the World Series roster, and Boone thought it was a good idea to bring Cortes into a game for the first time in five weeks in that situation.

“Just liked the matchup,” Boone said about using Cortes. “The reality is he's been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he's gotten ready for this. I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up Shohei if Tim Hill gets him on the ground, and then Mookie behind him is a tough matchup there. Felt convicted with Nestor in that spot.“

The thing is, it almost worked! Alex Verdugo made an awesome catch in foul territory when Shohei Ohtani popped up Nestor’s first pitch, and tumbled over the side wall after making the play. That was the second out of the inning. The runners moved up because Verdugo exited the field of play, and at that point, intentionally walking Mookie Betts to pitch to the hobbled Freddie Freeman was smart. Cortes just missed his spot.

“I got Shohei Ohtani out on a fastball up that I commanded real well,” Nestor said. “Tried to do the same to Freddie Freeman and left it a little down.”

Cortes got Ohtani (thanks to Verdugo’s catch) and walking Mookie was a no-brainer even though it did load the bases, and give Nestor zero margin of error. He made a bad pitch to Freeman and it was game over. Make a better pitch and it’s game over, with the Yankees winning. Boone and Cortes damn near got away with it, but damn near is not enough against the Dodgers. This ain’t the Royals and Guardians anymore. 

I just don’t understand bringing Cortes into that spot for his first game action in five weeks. I know he looked good against Oswaldo Cabrera and Jahmai Jones in sim games, but you gotta find the guy a softer landing spot than that in the World Series. Tim Hill’s been your go-to lefty for weeks, then suddenly you change up the bullpen pecking order in Game 1 of the World Series? To go to an injured starter?

Ultimately, it’s on Cortes to get the outs he’s asked to get, but I felt it was unfair and flat out wrong to use him in that spot. Did the starter coming off an injury and a five-week layoff give you the best chance there? I didn’t think so in real-time. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered and the Yankees were doomed to lose. It’s just hard to swallow a loss when it follows an obviously bad decision. Yuck.

“I’m excited to get back out there,” Cortes said. “I knew this (lefty) runway was for me, and I didn't get it done tonight. But I know there's more opportunities for me to come."

2. Giving away third base, three times. Three times – three! – the Yankees gave the Dodgers third base in Game 1. Handed it to them with carelessness. Alex Verdugo misplayed the ricochet off the side wall in the first inning, turning Freddie Freeman’s double into a triple. Juan Soto took a bad route on Enrique Hernández’s fifth inning double, and turned that into a triple. The Yankees were able to strand Freeman in the first, but Hernández scored the game’s first run on Will Smith’s sac fly.

Then, in the eighth inning, Shohei Ohtani hit Tommy Kahnle’s 56th (!) consecutive changeup off the wall for a double. Soto’s throw was too high to be cut off, and Gleyber Torres couldn’t keep the ball in front of him. It bounced into no man’s land on the infield, and Ohtani took third base. He then scored the game-tying run on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly. Three times the Yankees gave the Dodgers third base and twice it led to runs. The Royals and Guardians let you get away with that. Not the Dodgers.

I’m willing to chalk the Freeman triple up to bad luck. It took a weird bounce off the side wall and Verdugo kinda slipped when he changed directions. The Hernández ball had a catch probability of 5%. Soto wasn’t gonna catch it, but he should have held Hernández to a double. Instead, he played it into a triple, and the run scored on a sac fly. I still love you, Juan, but you’re lucky you can hit.

The Ohtani ball, I dunno man. The throw airmailing the cutoff man wasn’t the end of the world because it was right on second base. Torres couldn’t handle the hop though, and Anthony Rizzo had his head in the clouds at first base. He was supposed to be on the infield near the pitcher’s mound, backing up the throw. Instead he’s standing over at first base, I guess in case Ohtani retreated or something.

“Once there's no play, you can really retreat and give ground and get a long hop, but he still got to a short hop,” Aaron Boone said about Torres on that play. “You've just got to secure it there.”

The Yankees also got burned when Oswaldo Cabrera couldn’t corral Tommy Edman’s ground ball in the tenth inning. That was a difficult play, but Cabrera dove too far, and didn’t get an out. I don’t think they would have gotten the double play, Edman is too fast, but the Yankees should have gotten one out on that play. I don’t blame Cabrera too much for that though. The triples though? Come on man.

This is Yankees baseball though, right? They’re sloppy, they’re careless, and they’re undisciplined. This has been the case for years. What we saw in Game 1 was nothing new. Maybe the way the Yankees went about making those mistakes is new – I can’t recall a ball getting away like that on Ohtani’s double – but this is what the Yankees do. They give away free bases and free outs. It cost them Game 1.

3. Judge is a problem. It’s hard not to notice the juxtaposition. The Yankees intentionally walked Mookie Betts to get to Freddie Freeman in the bottom of the tenth, and Freeman hit a walk-off grand slam. The Dodgers intentionally walked Juan Soto to get to Aaron Judge in the top of the ninth, Judge took two pitches to fall behind 0-2, then hit a pop up to shortstop to end the inning.

Here are the pitches Judge saw in Game 1. He got some middle-middle breaking balls and did absolutely nothing with them:

Following Friday’s 1-for-5 with three strikeouts effort, Judge is hitting .167/.304/.361 (85 wRC+) with a 34.8 K% this postseason. He struck out with a runner on first in the first, with the bases empty in the third, with a runner on first in the sixth, singled with two outs and the bases empty in the seventh, and then popped out with two on in the ninth. Look at the other big names in Game 1:

• Juan Soto: 1-for-3 with two walks

• Giancarlo Stanton: 1-for-5 with a game-tying two-run homer

• Shohei Ohtani: 1-for-5 with a double that led to the Dodgers tying the game

• Mookie Betts: 0-for-3 with a walk and a game-tying sac fly

• Freddie Freeman: 2-for-5 with a triple and a walk-off grand slam

Stanton hit yet another incredible awesome home run in Game 1 (video). It’s his fourth straight game with a homer, making him the only player in baseball history with two separate home run streaks of at least four games in the postseason (he had a five-gamer in 2020). Soto reached base three times in Game 1 and lowered his postseason OPS from 1.106 to 1.096. Ohtani and Betts have been money for the Dodgers.

The Yankees can beat the Royals and Guardians with Judge not contributing but they won’t be able to beat the Dodgers. If he doesn’t hit, then the jig is up, and the Yankees are a dead team walking. The Yankees can’t drop him in the lineup either. Not many guys at the bottom of the order are hitting, and it is still Aaron Judge. Emmanuel Clase learned the hard way that Judge can still change a game with one swing. It's in there.

At some point Judge needs to hit, or this is going to go down as an all-time flop in the postseason after a terrific regular season. Alex Rodriguez got way more heat for his lack of postseason success than Judge ever has, and A-Rod was better in October. Judge and Gerrit Cole have to perform and lead the way. Cole did his job in Game 1. Judge did not, and he’s running out of games to change the narrative.

4. Rapid fire thoughts. Game 1 was the first time in 339 career starts (regular season and postseason) that Gerrit Cole allowed two triples, but they weren’t really on him, right? Those were doubles, for sure, then the defense played them into triples. Cole pitched well – 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K – and maybe the Yankees should have stuck with him in the seventh, but I understood pulling him. They had one-run leads in the eighth and tenth. Cole is the last guy who deserves blame for the loss … Two hits for Jazz Chisholm Jr., plus he stole second and third bases in the tenth inning. Anthony Volpe then got the bat on a two-strike sinker to bring Jazz home and give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Runners at 25-for-29 (86%) stealing bases against Blake Treinen the last three years (he missed most of 2023 with an injury) and the Yankees knew that, and Jazz pushed the envelope in Game 1. Good work by him and Volpe to give the Yankees the lead. Too bad it went for naught (what in the world is Anthony Rizzo doing here?) … And finally, I can’t remember the last time a fan interfered with a ball and everyone was in agreement the right call was made. The fan clearly reached over the wall on Gleyber Torres' double in the ninth inning (video). Not even the slightest hint of controversy there. No Jeffrey Maier luck this time. (The Maier incident happened 28 years ago. Excuse me while I crumble into dust.)

5. A quick roster note. The Evan Phillips situation taught me a new rule. Well, it’s not a new rule, it’s just new to me. If you carry a player on your postseason roster with a preexisting injury, you can’t remove him from the roster with that injury later, per Rule 41(a)(4). The rule is in place to prevent teams from swapping out relievers and otherwise manipulating their roster in a way that kinda sorta gives them an extra spot.

This rule means the Dodgers can’t remove Freddie Freeman from the active roster with an ankle problem. He can come off with a new injury, but not anything related to his ankle. It also applies to the Yankees and Nestor Cortes’ flexor strain. So if Nestor wakes up sore in a day or two and can’t go, too bad. The Yankees can’t remove him with a flexor-related injury. There’s some gray area – if his UCL snaps because his flexor is weak, is that a new injury? – and I’m not sure how that works, and I hope we don’t have to find out.