I Blame Gerrit Cole
We witnessed maybe the worst collapse in MLB elimination game history. Especially considering the weight of everything - World Series at Yankee Stadium, Aaron Judge has been terrible, the Yankees are about to get swept but finally turn a corner... for a brief moment everyone thought this was going at least 6 but likely 7 games.
Then we witnessed the worst 5th inning of all time.
A number of bad things happened here sandwiched around two epic strikeouts from Gerrit Cole.
Obviously that starts with Aaron Judge straight up dropping the most routine of flyball outs for his 1st error of the season
Truly a horrific play from an objectively good centerfielder. And the difference is substantial: runner on 1st with 1 out vs. runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs… that's worth almost a full run in expected runs scored.
Even so, Judge had 2 homers and a web gem to his name already in the 5th. The only reason you're up 5-0 in the first place is because of Aaron Judge. So to then turn around and get mad at him for blowing the lead he built himself is kinda difficult.
What's much easier is covering 1st base on a routine grounder to Anthony Rizzo:
If Gerrit Cole covers the bag, then the Yankees are at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles right now as you read this. That's the most important takeaway.
Up next - I need to make something extremely clear from 13 years of watching Anthony Rizzo play professional baseball. He NEVER tags 1st base. It might be the only thing in his entire game that ever bothered me while playing for the Cubs. He legitimately NEVER EVER EVER touches first base unless he is literally standing within foot-strike distance of the bag.
I'll talk more about the mechanics of the play - but we need to agree on one thing first. If you pitch while Anthony Rizzo plays first base, you should know/expect to cover 1st base on every single grounder to the right side. Even plays that are clearly the 2nd baseman's responsibility, he'll still peel off towards the play and let the pitcher cover the bag. It's fundamental to playing with Rizzo and I think most Cubs fans are nodding in agreement.
Why he does this is both simple and difficult… it's easy to explain but hard to understand.
The reason Anthony Rizzo does this is because he's in the fuckin big leagues. It's seared into his brain that the pitcher will always be there and Anthony Rizzo is trying any harder than the big league standard. Even in Game 5 of the World Series, he's programmed to act the same way at all times. So when he fields the ball here, it's immediately assumed that Gerrit Cole will also act on instinct.
All Gerrit Cole has to do is keep running to first base here. He's got about 20 less feet to cover than Mookie and he's already in motion. Every pitching coach everywhere is yelling something like COVER THE BAG.
Why Rizzo doesn't make this play is simply because he didn't expect he'd have to. He thought one of the best pitchers in the world was also trained on basic fundamentals - but he was wrong.
The fact Gerrit Cole stopped running makes Rizzo look bad - but that's not really the case. It's actually 100% on Cole, especially after being Rizzo's teammate for this long. You should know by now that Anthony is never taking the bag for himself.
The breakdown comes entirely from the errors up to this point. He's annoyed with Judge dropping a ball. Annoyed Volpe can't make a play to get one out. Annoyed he has to strikeout Ohtani and face Mookie with the bases loaded completely unnecessarily. Mad that Freeman waits on deck. Mad that they're down 3-1 in the first place and just mad things aren't going better. And when that happens, you're bound to break your competitive character. So much so that you just forget to cover the bag and abandon all responsibility.
The fact he hauled ass down the line on a Freddie Freeman foul ball immediately thereafter only strengthens the resolve that Gerrit Cole was at fault.
So while it's easy to blame Rizzo for being lazy, it's smarter to say that Gerrit Cole should've known better. Even with the distractions and frustrations, it's the pitcher's responsibility to stay with the game more than anyone else. That's the exact reason why they originally attributed Wins and Losses to starting pitchers. It's your game more than anyone else and last night Gerrit Cole blew it.
That's because the game sped up on him. And while inexcusable, it's also important to remember that it can happen to anyone. Even to the best at Yankee Stadium in the World Series.
Keep that in mind next time you bomb a presentation or a cut a bad fart on a date… or something humiliating that you want back. Remember that Gerrit Cole can't even cover 1st base on a routine grounder in the biggest jam of the biggest start on the biggest stage of his life.
When you think about it like that, literally just let it rip.