Passan: Yankees need to wake up before this dream World Series ends as a New York nightmare
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
LOS ANGELES — The New York Yankees came into the World Series carrying themselves like dawgs and have spent the first two games playing like dogs. To beat the Los Angeles Dodgers takes firm constitution, clean execution and an ability to meet the moment. The Yankees have crumbled, stumbled and bungled. They look like an American League team in a National League world. And unless New York figures out how to reawaken the best version of itself, this dream World Series will be over in time for kids to go trick-or-treating in Yankees uniforms with paper bags over their heads.
For the majority of Game 2 on Saturday night, a 4-2 Dodgers victory that gave Los Angeles a 2-0 advantage in the best-of-seven series, the Yankees appeared overwhelmed. They mustered one hit over the first eight innings. Their captain’s postseason disappearing act resulted in three more strikeouts. Their seeming starting-pitching advantage melted away with three home runs allowed. And it left them needing to do what few others have. Of the 54 teams that started the World Series with two-game deficits, only 10 recovered to win a ring.
“No one said it’s going to be easy,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s a long series, and we need to make it a long series now. We won’t flinch. We’ve just got to keep at it.”
Keeping at it necessitates a number of fixes, all of which are possible. Doing so on the fly, against a team as complete as the Dodgers, takes “urgency, will, grit,” Yankees first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “We’re going to have to will it to happen.”
Rizzo understands this better than anyone in the Yankees’ clubhouse. In 2016, his Chicago Cubs trailed Cleveland three games to one before rallying to win their first championship in 108 years. One untimely error could have doomed their season. One faulty pitch. One uncompetitive at-bat. Teams that dig themselves holes eradicate their margins for error. It’s hard enough to beat the Dodgers. Doing so with self-inflicted wounds won’t play.
It starts with Aaron Judge, the best hitter in the world, who at the most inopportune time has found his nadir. In the first two games of the World Series, Judge has swung the bat 24 times. He has missed on 14 of those swings, punching out six times in nine at-bats. His OPS this October is .605, down more than 500 points from his MLB-best 1.159 regular season. He is pressing, desperate to find the swing that carried the Yankees through a season with more ups than downs.
“I’ve got to step up,” Judge said, and it’s true. For all of Juan Soto‘s greatness — and this October has reinforced just how great he is — he and Giancarlo Stanton cannot be the only Yankees who are constant threats. Twice this postseason teams have opted to intentionally walk Soto to face Judge, and unless Judge contracts his strike zone and fixes his swing, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts will be incentivized to continue doing so. Throw Judge spin — 10 of the 14 swings and misses have come on curveballs, sliders and sweepers — and continue to win.
At the same time, Judge is not the only New York hitter coming up short. The Yankees are losing because they have been allergic to contact. The Yankees have swung at 147 pitches and missed 52 times. The Dodgers have swung at 133 pitches in the first two games and missed just 24. It is the defining statistic of the first two games, particularly considering how comparatively infrequently the Yankees did so against Kansas City and Cleveland during their first two rounds: 601 swings, 154 misses.
It’s not just a matter of the Yankees’ offense awakening. They need better pitching, too. And for Game 3, that falls on starter Clarke Schmidt. “I’m not trying to go out there and be a hero,” Schmidt said, and while he’s correct that trying to play hero ball is a path to nowhere good, a savior must emerge from somewhere.
With Shohei Ohtani cleared to play in Game 3 (he suffered a subluxation of his left shoulder on a slide during an attempted steal late in Game 2), the Dodgers can stack their lineup with left-handers to prey on mistakes from a right-hander whose arsenal runs almost entirely glove-side. Schmidt’s cutter-slider-curveball-heavy array doesn’t feature a changeup to keep hitters honest, and the Dodgers’ ability to fight off pitches — they’ve fouled off 39.1% of their swings in the World Series compared to the Yankees’ 29.9% — leaves any pitcher susceptible.
As if that’s not enough to remedy, the Yankees must do all of that while avoiding the blunders that doomed them in Game 1. No more misplaying balls in the outfield. No more kicking the ball around and allowing the Dodgers to take extra bases. No baserunning follies that give away outs.
“I feel like we’ve been playing really good baseball,” Yankees third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. said. “The guys still feel very confident at the plate on the field, and we still feel really confident in our pitching, so I feel like we’re just going to go home and feed off the crowd’s energy.”
Here’s the reality: The Yankees have not been playing really good baseball. They have been OK, and OK is not enough to beat the Dodgers. Championships demand top-to-bottom excellence, from the batter’s box to the pitcher’s mound to the field to the dugout, where Boone’s decision-making could mean the difference between a ring and a naked finger.
His choice to call on left-hander Nestor Cortes to pitch the 10th inning of Game 1 loomed over Game 2. Boone stood by his decision to go with Cortes, whose balky left arm had kept him out for more than five weeks before he allowed Freddie Freeman‘s walk-off grand slam, over lefty Tim Hill, who has been one of the Yankees’ best relievers. If there was any regret, Boone said, it was that he didn’t stick with closer Luke Weaver, who had needed just 19 pitches to secure five outs, to protect a 3-2 lead.
The Yankees finally came alive in the ninth inning of Game 2, lacing three singles off Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen and loading the bases with one out and a two-run deficit. Then Anthony Volpe struck out swinging at a Treinen sweeper nearly a foot off the plate. And pinch hitter Jose Trevino, in for the platoon advantage against left-hander Alex Vesia, lofted a fly ball to center field for the 27th out.
“I loved the at-bats there at the end,” Boone said. “The compete, the fight.”
It was too little, too late, and now the Yankees are in a precarious position. For six months, they reigned as the best team in the AL. They cruised through the first two rounds, beating teams with payrolls a third of their size. The Dodgers are not the Royals and the Guardians. They are a machine, and over two games they have handed the Yankees as many losses as New York had the rest of October combined.
The Dodgers also are not infallible. San Diego pushed Los Angeles to the brink of elimination. The New York Mets took two games against them. The Dodgers’ Game 3 starter, Walker Buehler, hasn’t pitched since Oct. 16, they are primed to throw a relievers-only Game 4, and the Yankee Stadium crowd is bound to invigorate New York. The path to an even series is there. This is the Yankees’ first World Series since 2009, and they are at risk of blowing it spectacularly. They can win. They can convince Soto that he needs to spend the rest of his career in the Bronx. They can solidify Judge’s legacy. They can capture their 28th championship.
All they need is to back up their season-long bark with some World Series bite.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Alex Ovechkin said Saturday that he intends to return to the Washington Capitals for his 21st NHL season after breaking Wayne Gretzky’s career goal-scoring record earlier this spring.
Ovechkin joked about joining the minor league Hershey Bears for their playoff run and indicated the question wasn’t whether he would be back but rather whether he had what it takes to earn a spot.
“First of all, [I have] to make a roster at 40 years old,” Ovechkin quipped on locker cleanout day, less than 48 hours after he and the Capitals were eliminated in the second round by the Carolina Hurricanes.
Ovechkin, who turns 40 in September, has one season left on the five-year, $47.5 million contract he signed in 2021. He said he is approaching the summer like any other, planning to train the same way in the offseason and see where things go.
“I’m going to use those couple months [in the offseason] to rest, enjoy my life, then back to work,” Ovechkin said. “Me and [trainer Pavel Burlachenko are] going do our job to get ready for the season and just do my best.”
Ovechkin is coming off a whirlwind season in which he overcame a broken leg to score 44 goals — the third most in the league — and pass Gretzky’s career mark of 894 that long seemed unapproachable. The Russian superstar has 897.
“For him to come back this year and play the way that he did, chase down this record, the start that he had, breaking his leg, coming back from that, and just continuing to not only do things he did individually, statistically, but lead our team — that’s part of the story that will be a minor part of it, but it’s a big part of it,” coach Spencer Carbery said after the Game 5 loss to the Hurricanes on Thursday night. “He did what he came back this year to prove and show, and he did it in the playoffs as well. I tip my cap to ‘O’ and the season that he had and as our captain leading the way.”
Ovechkin led the team with five goals in 10 games this postseason but had just one goal in the second round as he and the team fell short of the Eastern Conference finals for the 15th time in 16 appearances during his career. The other time was their Stanley Cup run in 2018, when Ovechkin won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
Going into next season, Ovechkin wants to work toward chasing a second championship.
“I’m looking forward for next year,” Ovechkin said. “I’m going to try to do my best to play, and my team is going to help me too. … I just want to come back next year and see the team who’s capable of winning the Stanley Cup.”
Beyond that, he’s not sure what the future holds when his contract comes to an end.
“I haven’t thought about it yet, but we’ll see what’s going to happen,” Ovechkin said. “I’m going to try to do my best to be able to do well next year, and we’ll see.”
Longtime teammate Tom Wilson, guesses “900 and beyond” on the goal counter is coming next for Ovechkin.
“At no point am I thinking in my head that there’s ever going to be a day without Ovi on the Caps,” Wilson said. “He’s still flying out there. He had an incredible season. I think he probably exceeded expectations and beyond. You can never count that guy out. He’s such a tremendous leader. I’m sure he’s going to keep buzzing.”
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