Lennon: The World Series mistake is part of Judge's legacy for now

The discussion surrounding Aaron Judge for most of October focused on how much he hurt the Yankees with his sub-MVP-level performance.

Then, after Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night, Judge finally managed to change the conversation.

Now, with a long winter ahead, it's all about how Judge killed the Yankees in their 7-6 loss to the Dodgers, who ended their season in front of a shocked crowd of 49,263 at the stadium.

Knowing Judge, that seems like an impossible statement to digest, especially when the Yankees captain and Shohei Ohtani were in a league of their own this year. But Judge's disappointing stats through the first two and a half rounds of these playoffs ended up being just a footnote to the stomach-churning crowning misfortune that occurred in the fifth inning of Game 5.

We won't get involved in the Bill Buckner comparison. The stakes were obviously not at that level. But just as the Red Sox's ambulatory first baseman lived in infamy for nearly two decades, accompanied by Vin Scully's eternal soundtrack (“Behind the bag, it gets through Buckner…”), so too will Judge with that Tommy Edman bow tie plagued ball that somehow clinked off his glove, allowing the Dodgers to soon tie the score with five unearned runs in that inning.

Buckner's game actually had the higher degree of difficulty, and we will never know for sure whether or not Mookie Wilson would have beaten him at first base anyway. For Judge, however, there were no other variables. It was the kind of routine fly ball he had probably never messed up in his life, no matter the level.

“I just couldn’t do it,” Judge said afterwards.

Plus, Judge's mistake – his first of the year – wasn't fatal for the Yankees. Unlike Buckner, the game didn't end because of his mistake. But the bizarre nature of his mistake, which resembled a bolt of lightning from a cloudless blue sky, greatly increased its significance in the Yankees' unraveling. After the Dodgers' first hit off the masterful Gerrit Cole – a leadoff single by Enrique Hernandez – Judge's breakdown galvanized LA's rousing comeback hopes, but it was still the last to contend with the reigning Cy Young winner must .

At that point, the Yankees were still leading 5-0, and their previously failed home run machine was fully activated, as Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton had each gone deep. But the judge's clink was such a special case that it created an uneasy feeling in the stadium. And as we know, the Yankees' problems only got worse from there, followed by Anthony Volpe's top throw to third for the second error and then Cole teaming with Anthony Rizzo for the collective brain freeze that gave Mookie Betts an RBI infield single.

“That comes to mind again, I have to make that play,” Judge said. “That line drive comes in, I misinterpreted that, then the other two happen. If that doesn’t happen, it could be a completely different story.”

By the start of Game 5, Judge had turned his personal October narrative around and was in the process of building a serious legacy en route to the Yankees' 5-0 lead. When Judge stepped to the plate in the first inning, fans greeted him with a standing ovation and then chanted “MVP!” as he dug into the box. The sellout crowd tried to give the captain of the struggling Yankees a spiritual boost, and he rewarded them by smashing Jack Flaherty's first-pitch fastball into the right-field stands.

It was Judge's 16th career playoff home run, his third this October and his first in 16 at-bats in his first World Series appearance. The stadium had been waiting for Judge's decisive moment, and as the Yankees fought for their survival in the World Series, he was the captain, as his predecessor Derek Jeter once was.

Three innings later, Judge fired up the MVP chants again when he hit the wall in front of the visitors' bullpen to catch Freddie Freeman's 405-foot fly ball. This became Judge's Night, the game in which he finally earned his October pinstripe medal after struggling mightily under the weight of playoff expectations.

Before reaching the World Series, Judge had batted .193 (16 for 83) with 33 strikeouts and an OPS of .715 in 22 ALCS games. Overall, his 32.8% strikeout rate is the highest of any player with at least 210 plate appearances in the postseason. This October, Judge hit .083 (1-for-12) with runners in scoring position, and two teams even intentionally had Juan Soto run to him to throw to him.

When the Guardians loaded the bases in front of him in the ALCS, Judge responded with a sacrifice fly. Last Friday in LA, Judge fumbled at second base in the ninth inning of Game 1, which the Yankees lost 6-3 in 10 innings.

On Wednesday, Judge tried to rally the Yankees late with a one-out double in the eighth inning but failed to score in their dying breath. In Game 5, in which Judge hit a home run and a double-in while making a spectacular run-saving catch, the fly ball that didn't stick in his glove will remain a lasting image of him.

And now Judge will carry that until the Yankees one day end their now 15-year championship drought. No matter how many MVP awards he collects in the regular season or how many home runs he hits.

“The loss in the World Series will stay with me until the day I die,” Judge said. “Just like any other loss, these things don’t go away, they are battle scars along the way. Hopefully by the end of my career we will have a lot of battle scars, but also a lot of victories along the way.”

For now, the scars are all that remains for the Judge's Yankees after its only trip to the World Series in nine years.

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a Baseball Hall of Fame voter and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.