Aaron Judge admitted the pain of the New York Yankees’ World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers will stick with him “till the day I die”.
Judge, who is likely to be named the American League MVP, finally showed flashes of his regular-season brilliance on Wednesday night by reaching base four times, mashing a first-inning home run and claiming a clutch catch on the fence off Freddie Freeman.
But he was also a key part of a fifth-inning meltdown that handed the Dodgers a route back into Game 5. They took it to win the game 7-6 and the series 4-1.
Judge dropped a routine Tommy Edman drive with a runner on and nobody out.
Judge is not able to make the grab on that one, and the Dodgers have 2 on with nobody out!
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/S8c5QGQljm
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 31, 2024
It was to prove pivotal as the Yankees wobbled and further errors from Anthony Volpe and Gerrit Cole enabled the Dodgers to cross home plate five times and draw level at 5-5.
“That doesn’t happen, I think we got a different story tonight,” Judge said. Asked what went wrong, he said: “I just didn’t make it.
“It comes back to me. I’ve got to make the play and probably the other two [errors] don’t happen.
“You can’t give teams like that extra outs. They’re going to capitalize, especially [with] their one, two, three top of the order. They don’t miss.”
Judge and Ohtani both flop
The World Series was billed as Judge versus Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani.
As it was, they both endured disappointing Fall Classics. Ohtani suffered a partially dislocated shoulder in Game 2 and, despite playing on, went 2-for-19.
Despite Judge’s homer, he fared little better as his woeful postseason record continued.
“I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me til the day I die, probably,” Judge said.
“Just like every other loss, those things don’t go away. They’re battle scars along the way. Hopefully when my career is over, we’ve got a lot of battle scars, but also a lot of victories, too.”
“I think falling short in the World Series will stick with me until I die, probably.”
– Aaron Judge pic.twitter.com/A7Cy3qAbid
— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) October 31, 2024
