The New York Yankees can’t afford to leave runs on the table against the Dodgers.
World Series baseball returns to the Bronx for the first time since the Yankees captured their 27th championship in 2009. The team has been largely dominant this postseason with a 7-2 record across their two series against the Kansas City Royals and Cleveland Guardians.
The Bombers coasted to the Fall Classic relatively unscathed but left plenty of base runners stranded along the way. They now head to Los Angeles to take on the Dodgers, a team that has done the exact opposite with runners in scoring position.
While their struggles to advance and score base runners have not halted their success, the Yankees must improve their situational hitting to combat the remarkably clutch Dodgers offense.
Yankees are stranding base runners
Throughout the postseason, the Yankees have done a great job getting runners on base with a .346 OBP. However, the Bombers’ bats have gone quiet when it’s time to cash in, with the team batting just .181 with RISP. The disastrous mark is the worst among any team to advance to the Championship Series.
So far, the Yankee offense has been propelled by their monumental home run hitters, quickly making up for the nearly 70 runners they’ve stranded in October. New York has also benefited from consistent pitching (3.27 team ERA) to hold down their narrow leads.
While they’ve been able to afford stranding runners against their American League counterparts, the Yankees will need every run they can get when going against a team that is manufacturing runs at will.
The Dodgers have consistently produced in high-leverage moments this postseason, hitting a remarkable .311 with runners in scoring position with a whopping .966 OPS. Especially impressive is the production of the presumed National League MVP, Shohei Ohtani. Playing in October for the first time, Ohtani is hitting .667 (6/9) with RISP with an unheard of 2.083 OPS, two home runs with nine RBIs.
Los Angeles is scoring over six runs per game and showing no signs of slowing down, putting pressure on the Yankees to produce runs before it’s too late.
The responsibility falls on Aaron Judge
The postseason struggles of Aaron Judge have not gone unmentioned, but it’s important to note that his teammates have set him up with many opportunities to make defenses pay.
The one and two hitters, Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto, are both boasting OBPs of .400+. Looking at the first inning, specifically, Torres has reached base safely in eight out of nine postseason games (.889) and Soto seven (.778).
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While Judge has come up clutch with two massive homers, the presumed American League MVP has yet to produce a hit with runners actually in scoring position, going 0-7 with four strikeouts and two walks. He has just two RBIs in these situations which resulted from a sacrifice fly and a dropped fly ball.
Judge might not be the only one struggling at the plate, but he is the only captain.
Yankees must attack Dodgers’ struggling rotation
The silver lining for the Yankees is that the Dodgers’ starters have yet to find their stride this postseason. The rotation headlined by Jack Flaherty, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and Walker Buehler has collectively posted a disappointing 6.08 ERA through 40 innings pitched.
Of the Dodgers’ four postseason losses, three of them resulted from their opponents teeing off on their starters. The Padres scored four against Flaherty and six against Buehler in their two wins of the NLDS while the Mets racked up eight runs on Flaherty in Game 5 of the NLCS.
A stark contrast, the Dodgers’ bullpen has rebounded nicely with a 3.16 ERA. Thus, the Yankees’ key to winning this series is to attack starters and put games away before Los Angeles can answer back.
The Yankees have demonstrated their ability to put runners on base early in games. It’s now up to the offense to cash in on these runs, and it has to start with their captain.