The Los Angeles Dodgers bested the New York Yankees in the World Series, capturing their eighth title in their rich history. The series was resolved in just five games, but it was generally closer than the final scoreboard indicates.
Still, the Dodgers knew that the Yankees would beat themselves because of their poor fundamentals. That’s the scouting report they had and it proved true.
The Dodgers exposed the Yankees’ weaknesses
New York Post’s Joel Sherman wrote Thursday that “the Dodgers considered New York to be the worst-positioned outfield in baseball heading into the World Series.” The Yankees had problems with some reads in key spots, issues that eventually led to runs scored in very close games.
There is more.
“What the Dodgers told their players in scouting meetings was the Yankees were talent over fundamentals,” Sherman wrote, according to SI.com. “That if you run the bases with purpose and aggression, the Yankees will self-inflict harm as was exposed by [Mookie] Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, etc. That the value was very high to put the ball in play to make the Yankees execute. They mentioned that the Yankees were … the majors’ worst base-running team by every metric.”
The Yankees ended up beating themselves
It was all true: the Yanks beat themselves with poor outfield positioning, bad baserunning, boneheaded decisions when fielding some key balls, baffling fielding and throwing errors, and a lack of fundamentals as we saw on the Gerrit Cole – Anthony Rizzo play at first base in Game 5.
You can find mistakes and blunders of all types in every game of the series. Even players like Volpe, who is a Gold Glover, committed costly errors.
Perhaps if the Yankees had limited their mistakes to a minimum, we would be watching Game 6 on Friday night. It’s impossible to prove but they could even have been leading the series with better fundamentals and awareness.
