Yankees legend: 'One of the biggest meltdowns' doesn't just affect the players

The autopsy of the New York Yankees' 2024 season could probably be described as “dead on arrival.”

For all their winning and monumental performances from players like Aaron Judge and Juan Soto throughout the year, they often weren't a fundamentally solid team to begin with – too many fielding and baserunning mistakes that many thought would ruin their season.

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Restore the glory

During Wednesday's World Series Game 5, the Yankees' defense did just that, blowing a 5-0 lead and ultimately watching the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrate the World Series in their stadium as 7-6 victors. While Yankees legend Alex Rodriguez couldn't believe what he saw, he told FOX viewers that this was the 2024 Yankees and blamed manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman.

“This is one of the biggest collapses I've ever seen in 40 years,” Rodriguez said on the post-game show alongside Hall of Famer Derek Jeter and David Ortiz.

“They are like that all year round. They've been very inconsistent, and that's why, from a manager's and front office's perspective, identifying problems needs to be nipped in the bud. They've been sloppy all year. They were sloppy against Kansas City, sloppy against Cleveland, but you can't get away with that when you have a much better team in the LA Dodgers. Very unfortunate.”

These repeated bad habits, which Boone often publicly excused, were a concern heading into the playoffs – which the Yankees largely overcame until facing the Dodgers in the World Series. In the fateful fifth inning, the Yankees led 5-0. Ten batters later, the Dodgers and Yankees were tied 5-5, and all of the Dodgers' runs were unearned.

In that frame, New York committed two errors (and three for the game, which came later due to a catcher's interference) and ace Gerrit Cole failed to cover first base with a groundball to Anthony Rizzo, which would have limited the damage to nothing . The collapse began when centerfielder Aaron Judge caught a Tommy Edman fly ball off center on the second batter of the game (for his first error of the season) and continued on the next play when Anthony Volpe botched a throw to third base.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an inning like that, especially in a World Series or postseason game,” Jeter said. “Look, the Yankees made some mistakes. You can't make mistakes against a team like the Los Angeles Dodgers. In that particular inning you gave them six outs.”