Will Soto Wear The Pinstripes Next Year?

Photo: Special to the NY Beacon

By Matthew Kennedy

Freeman 2024 World Series MVP

Photo: Special to the NY Beacon

New York City is in mourning, as the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees in the 2024 World Series last night in a gentleman’s sweep. It was an especially painful series for the Bronx Bombers, who have now lost three of their last four Fall Classic appearances. The tone of the series was set in game one, where the Yankees were one out away from going up 1-0 on the road after a dominant start from Gerrit Cole and Giancarlo Stanton’s sixth home run of the playoffs (which tied a franchise record). 

But in the bottom of the ninth inning, manager Aaron Boone opted to bring in Nestor Cortes and intentionally walk Mookie Betts to load the bases and bring up Freddie Freeman, with New York clinging to a one-run lead. Cortes had been sidelined with an injury for over a month and as Yankee fans hoped for the best, they got the worst – a monster grand-slam by Freeman – the first walk-off grand-slam in 120 years of the World Series. 

The Yankees bounced back in game four off the back of an Anthony Volpe grand-slam, and hoped to become the first team in MLB history to force a game six after going down three games to none in the World Series. Cole came out strong once again, and three home runs put his team up 5-0 by the end of the third inning and in a prime position to get the series back to L.A. But no one could predict what was to come. Perhaps the most disastrous defensive inning in baseball history occurred, as the Yankees committed four costly mistakes which allowed the Dodgers to score five unearned runs. After the meltdown, the Yankees never really seemed to recover and Los Angeles ran away with the game, celebrating their eighth World Series championship on New York’s home turf. The inning will go down in sports history as one of the biggest choke-jobs of all-time. 

Despite all this, the Yankees should take pride in making their first World Series appearance since the glory days of Derek Jeter co., even if they came up painfully short in the end. Still, this loss stings a little more than usual because the Yankees have no one but to blame but themselves. It wasn’t superb L.A. pitching or irreparable damage from Shohei Ohtani and the Dodger bats, but their own sloppiness that lost them the series. The combination of six errors (as well as numerous other defensive blunders) and nearly 40 runners stranded in a five-game series is simply too much for any team to overcome. So for now, the “Chase for 28” is very much still in effect.