The Yankees have a simple problem in this World Series. Everything they do well, the Dodgers do better — power, patience, pitching.
And then there is so much the Yankees do not do well, from running the bases to executing on defense, that Los Angeles also excels at.
Heck, the Dodgers even have the advantage in areas such as a way louder home crowd, deeper bench and better pregame rap performance — Ice Cube over Fat Joe.
It sounds like a mismatch, and so far the 120th World Series is just that. The Yankees waited 15 years to play in the World Series, and with each passing game, it’s like they were never even here. A CSI crew will be needed to search for fingerprints and DNA at this point.
Game 1 was a classic that the Yankees squandered from their defense to Aaron Boone’s decision-making. And since Freddie Freeman’s grand slam decided that one in the 10th inning, the Yankees have not had a lead and have been lifeless on offense.
I’m not sure you can be blown out by a final score of 4-2 — yet that is how Game 2 and now Game 3 have played out. The advantage in starting pitching the Yankees were supposed to have has not materialized, particularly in these last two games as first Carlos Rodon and then Clarke Schmidt pitched the Yankees behind while Dodgers starters Yoshinobu Yamamoto and then Walker Buehler on Monday night began a baton pass of pitching suffocation.
In both games, the Yankees offense slept for eight innings and roused in the ninth to cosmetically create a close final score that did not reflect the on-field reality in a series that the Dodgers now lead three games to none.
“Extremely tough,” said Alex Verdugo, whose two-run, two-out ninth inning homer represented the Yankee scoring. “They’re one win away and we’re four wins away. So obviously, you can do the math with that. It’s going to be tough.”
It is tough on steroids. Perhaps you can convince someone dumb or dumber that the Yankees have a chance because once in 40 tries when a team trailed 0-3 in an MLB postseason series, it did come back to win. That was the 2004 Red Sox, whose comeback against the Yankees was fueled by a Game 4 stolen base by current Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. But David Ortiz is not walking off the FOX pregame set through those Yankees clubhouse doors.
“Obviously, not where we want to be right now,” Anthony Rizzo said. “It stinks. It definitely stinks.”
It already feels like a Whitey Ford ago that the preview of this series was an even matchup of coastal superpowers destined to go seven games.
Instead, Freeman has tied the Yankees 3-3 in homers and Los Angeles leads 5-3 overall in the one category the Yankees must win to conceal blemishes elsewhere. Another Yankee strength is plate discipline, but it is the Dodgers grinding Yankee pitchers, turning their first two walks into runs. Shohei Ohtani, playing somewhat gingerly 48 hours after — in the Dodgers report — dislocating his shoulder, walked to lead off the game and came home on Freeman’s homer off Schmidt.
Tommy Edman drew a walk to open the third off Schmidt, who would not survive the inning. He then created a run in a way generally foreign to the Yankees via legs and baseball IQ. He was running and took second on Ohtani’s groundout and then got a great read instantly that Mookie Betts’ looper to right was going to fall and scored easily. Gavin Lux stole a base in the sixth inning to position himself to score on Enrique Hernandez’s signal for a 4-0 lead.
Meanwhile, the Yanks are the worst baserunning team in the majors. Stanton, who has hit like Babe Ruth this month, still runs as if carrying the weight of the franchise. On an Anthony Volpe two-out single to left that scores most runners, Stanton was thrown out at the plate by Teoscar Hernandez.
Rodon and Schmidt combined to last six innings and allow seven runs in Games 2 and 3 compared to Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler combining for 11 ¹/₃ and one run.
“Possibly coming into this series, we thought we were even or better than them,” Nestor Cortes said. “And, obviously, these three games have not gone our way.”
And yet, the Yankees may have a win or two or even three if Aaron Judge were hitting. But he was 0-for-3 with a walk to fall to 1-for-12 with seven strikeouts in this World Series, 6-for-43 (.140) this postseason and 42-for-214 (.196) in his postseason career. Judge has no hits in his last two World Series games and the Yanks are 17-34 (postseason included) when Judge does not have a hit in a game.
The two MVPs do not glimmer quite the same with that history. The Yankees often go as Judge does — and Judge has gone bad in October(s). The Dodgers again unplugged him and the soul and voice of the 49,368 attending the first World Series game in The Bronx since Nov. 4, 2009.
“Hopefully we can go be this amazing story and shock the world,” Boone said. “But right now it’s about trying to get a lead, trying to grab a game, and force another one, and then on from there.”
That feels like an impossible mountain when you do nothing better than your opponent.
