The New York Yankees held a 5-0 lead in Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night heading into the fifth inning.
To that point, Gerrit Cole hadn\'t even allowed a hit to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In a flash, the game was tied 5-5 thanks to a series of defensive miscues by the Yankees, who won 94 games during the regular season despite issues running the bases and on defense.
\"This is like as bad as it gets,\" Cole said.
It started with Enrique Hernandez breaking the no-hit bid with a leadoff single. Four pitches later, Tommy Edman hit a routine line drive to Aaron Judge in center field. He flubbed the liner for his first error in 2024 -- regular season or postseason.
\"That doesn\'t happen, we got a different story tonight,\" Judge said.
Five pitches after that, Will Smith hit a ground ball to shortstop Anthony Volpe\'s right side. He fielded the ball cleanly but short-hopped his throw to third baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr. attempting to nab the lead runner. Chisholm failed to corral the throw, loading the bases with no outs.
Cole then struck out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani to put the Yankees an out away from getting out of the inning without allowing a run.
Mookie Betts hit a ground ball to first base, seemingly ending the inning, but Anthony Rizzo didn\'t charge the ball and Cole didn\'t cover first base. Betts reached first without a throw, scoring a run for the Dodgers.
Freddie Freeman then slashed a two-run single to center field. Teoscar Hernandez followed with a game-tying two-run double to left-center field, completing a stupefying sequence that left the crowd stunned in the Bronx.
\"You can\'t give teams like that extra outs,\" Judge said. \"They\'re going to capitalize, especially [with] their one, two, three top of the order. They don\'t miss.\"
The Dodgers would go on to clinch the championship with a 7-6 win.
