New York Yankees starting first baseman Anthony Rizzo recently had a rival take a swing at his name.
Yankees: Dodgers’ Michael Kopech takes a shot at Anthony Rizzo
Los Angeles Dodgers star reliever Michael Kopech insinuated that Rizzo’s mound visits throughout the 2024 World Series were excessive and ineffective. Nj.com’s Jimmy Hascup shared a portion of Kopech’s dig spewed on the Sunday episode of the “Baseball Isn’t Boring” podcast:
“Man, I really didn’t want to say names here,” Kopech said. “I’m just gonna say it,” Kopech said. “(First baseman Anthony) Rizzo made hundreds of mound visits in the World Series games. You can almost see the pitchers’ faces, just like, ‘What could they be talking about right now?’
The Dodgers wound up beating the Yankees in their fierce Fall Classic rivalry matchup. By the time Game 5 rolled around, New York was down 3-1 in the series and on the brink of elimination.
Kopech believes Rizzo was visiting the mound too much in the 2024 World Series
Rizzo visited Gerrit Cole on the mound particularly in Game 5. The Yankees held a commanding 5-0 lead entering the fifth inning before collapsing catastrophically. The four-time Gold Glove Award winner was in poor position and committed a flagrant error by allowing Dodgers superstar Mookie Betts to record an RBI single that put the first points on the board for New York on the game. He would go on to visit Cold, which caused L.A. to create running jokes.
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Kopech felt as if that, as well as his other visits, became too frequent and wondered what it was that he could have been saying to give ace Gerrit Cole and their other ensemble of pitchers a boost. The Dodgers are basking in their second championship won in the last five years and this just adds to a list of subtle shots that many of their players have taken at the Yankees, as Hascup also made note of.
