Néstor Cortés Jr. and the Yankees bullpen fail to get the last three outs in Game 1 loss to the Dodgers (Video)

LOS ANGELES – As Yankees reliever Jake Cousins ​​walked to the mound for the bottom of the 10th inning, he had a simple but delicate task ahead of him: retiring the team in order against the bottom third of the Dodgers’ lineup , leaving Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts. and Freddie Freeman stood looking, and Game 1 of the World Series would belong in New York.

If one of Will Smith, Gavin Lux or Tommy Edman reached base, the entire aspect of the game would change. With Ohtani looming in the leadoff spot, Cousins ​​would surely be retired should the future NL MVP come to the plate. As for who would come in from the New York bullpen to face Ohtani in that scenario? That was a question coach Aaron Boone surely didn’t want to have to answer.

Six days earlier, Cousins ​​had been brilliant in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, striking out four of the five batters he faced in the closing stages of a tied game that the Yankees would win to clinch the pennant. of the American League. Cousins ​​is one of several Yankees relief turnaround projects who have gradually earned Boone’s trust in high-leverage spots, and with guys to whom Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver had already pitched at the time. regulation, it was Cousins, with only one save in his career. to his name, who received the ball with the opportunity to close out Game 1.

With three more outs, the Yankees would earn a narrow road victory in a game that featured ace Gerrit Cole turning in six stellar one-run innings and another spectacular explosion from October superhero Giancarlo Stanton that had given New York a lead in the match. sixth inning. Jazz Chisholm Jr., coming off a terribly quiet American League Championship Series, had regained the lead for the Yankees with a leadoff single and aggressive baserunning to manufacture a run in the top of the tenth. Cole and Stanton aside, it hadn’t been the easiest path for New York to reach the bottom of the tenth with a lead: repeated failures with runners in scoring position and A defensive error by Gleyber Torres persisted as the game progressed, but with just three more outs, all would be forgotten.

Smith flew to right for a harmless first out, but Lux followed with a five-pitch walk. As effective as Cousins ​​has been as a Yankee, he is prone to missing the zone relatively frequently, particularly against left-handed hitters, and that wildness resurfaced at a brutally inopportune time. Suddenly, Ohtani’s appearance at the plate was imminent, barring Edman hitting a grounder for a double play. But when Edman hit a hard grounder up the middle that second baseman Oswaldo Cabrera couldn’t corral in time to record outs, the threat of much more than just Ohtani emerged for New York. With only one out, Betts and Freeman grabbed their bats and prepared to hit in case Ohtani couldn’t make it.

But first, that dreaded question the Yankees would have preferred not to address: Who would face Ohtani?

Boone had two lefties warming up to choose from: Nestor Cortés Jr. and Tim Hill. Hill, a journeyman like Cousins, has found a home in the Yankees bullpen as a left-handed outsider who has consistently baffled opposing hitters with his unique arm angle and has performed well in seven appearances this October. Cortes represents a much more familiar face, a former All-Star who has become a staple of New York’s pitching staff in recent years, but a much bigger unknown at the moment. He hadn’t pitched since Sept. 18 after suffering an elbow flexor strain, but had been rehabbing for the past month and recovered to the point that New York deemed him worth adding to the World Series roster. , especially as a potential counterattack for the group. of dangerous left-handed bats in the Los Angeles lineup.

And with two of those left-handed sluggers, Ohtani and Freeman, scheduled to hit with the game on the line, Boone was confident Cortes was the right decision.

“I just liked the matchup,” he said afterward. “The reality is he’s been throwing the ball really well the last couple of weeks getting ready for this. I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up on Shohei if Tim Hill throws him to the ground and then Mookie comes right behind him.” “It’s a tough matchup there, so I felt convinced with Nestor in that spot.”

And so, Cortés trotted in for what was not only the most influential assignment of his major league career, but also as daunting a situation as any reliever could face: a trio of MVPs with two more outs. to get.

As Cortes warmed up, the volume at Dodger Stadium reached a new high for the night, as the announced crowd of 52,394 anxiously awaited the possibility of Ohtani leaving the World Series. But the anticipation for such a moment was abruptly derailed when Ohtani sent Cortés’ first pitch down the left field line, only to see Alex Verdugo make an excellent grab in foul territory, crashing into the wall and into the stands for a shocking second. . outside.

Because Verdugo fell offside, the runners were allowed to advance to second and third position. This left first base open, so Boone opted to put in Betts to set up the left-to-left matchup for Cortes against Freeman, albeit with the bases loaded and Chavez Ravine ready to fully explode.

The expected Ohtani and/or Betts moments might have been in vain, but that’s why the Dodgers keep acquiring MVPs. This time it was Freeman’s turn.

Once again, Cortes’ first pitch (a fastball that catcher Austin Wells wanted to go up and in but that leaked into Freeman’s nitro zone) was attacked with bad intentions. And this time, he had no chance of being caught by anyone other than the crowd of ecstatic Dodger fans who had packed the right field pavilion. About seven minutes after Cortes entered hoping to clinch the Yankees’ victory in Game 1, Freeman achieved the team’s first grand slam in World Series history. Life comes at you quickly in October.

A Yankees bullpen that didn’t allow an earned run in 15 2/3 innings in the ALDS against the Royals had begun to show cracks against the Guardians in the ALCS, but still managed to record the biggest outs in the biggest moments in the way to a series. victory in only five games. The Dodgers, however, represent an entirely different beast for New York’s bullpen to tame. And in a series opener in Los Angeles in which Boone was apparently in position to deploy a fully rested relief corps (plus an apparent reinforcement in Cortes) in a fairly favorable sequence, the Yankees failed to record enough outs to secure a victory.

This is the second time this month that the Yankees have been on the losing end of an outright October classic. Their lone American League Championship Series loss against Cleveland came in particularly, yet equally exciting, fashion in Game 3, a contest in which New York also took a late lead only to squander it by allowing a home run that left out. But as brutal as it was at the time, it was relatively easy (and logical) for New York to maintain a sense of confidence after that heartbreaking loss in Cleveland. The Yankees still felt firmly in control of the series and were able to quickly improve the result and move forward with a calm that was validated as they closed out the series over the next two days.

Such luxury doesn’t exist as things stand in Los Angeles, as the Yankees are now down in a series for the first time in October. If you didn’t know exactly how it played out, the Yankees losing Game 1 in Los Angeles would be a totally reasonable outcome to accept at the start of the series. But the sequence of events and combination of bad results that led to New York’s dramatic loss on Friday were a sobering reminder of how tough their World Series opponent is, and how much better the Yankees will have to play and pitch if they want to keep up with Los Angeles.