Yankees' Fate Was Sealed by a Fielding Gaffe

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series Wednesday night in a wild 7-6 comeback in Game 5, and Chris Branch of the Athletic writes that the victory came down to a single play—a "simple error."

• The play: Watch it here.
• The details: The Yankees led 5-0 in the top of the fifth, with the bases loaded and two outs. The Dodgers' Mookie Betts hit a slow roller up the first base line, and first baseman Anthony Rizzo and pitcher Gerrit Cole each apparently thought the other would be covering first. "It is a play practiced at all levels of baseball, and it's now the one that will haunt Yankees fans forever," writes Branch.

• The damage: Instead of the inning ending with the Yankees up 5-0, Betts was safe, the Dodgers scored a run—and then tacked on four more runs in the inning to tie the game. All of them unearned. As MLB.com puts it, "the floodgates opened." The story notes that the Yankees made two previous errors that inning that loaded the bases. You can watch the full inning here.
• What happened? "Rizzo didn't charge the ball, likely on account of some confusing spin, but the real culprit was Cole and his failure to do the pitcher's basic work of covering first base on a grounder to the right side," writes Dayn Perry at CBS Sports. "I took a bad angle to the ball," Cole said later. "I wasn't sure how hard he hit it. By the time the ball got by me, I was not in a position to cover first. Neither of us were."

(More World Series stories.)