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Two games into the 2024 World Series, the Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves in an awkward space between undeniable good vibes and cautious optimism.
The good news? They have a 2-0 lead over the New York Yankees after holding on for a 4-2 win in Game 2 on Saturday.
The bad news? Shohei Ohtani has an injured left shoulder.
The soon-to-be three-time MVP attempted to show off his wheels after drawing a walk against Clay Holmes in the seventh inning, but getting thrown out by Austin Wells instantly became a secondary story as soon as Ohtani began wincing in pain:
Per ESPN’s Alden González, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after Game 2 that Ohtani suffered a subluxation of his left shoulder. His strength and range of motion are good.
“We’re encouraged,” Roberts said.
It could, in other words, be worse.
At least as of now, there would seem to be a chance of Ohtani returning to his customary posts at designated hitter and atop the Dodgers lineup. And if so, them finishing off their first full-season championship since 1988 will be that much likelier.
For their part, the Yankees would no doubt happily trade places with the Dodgers. If given a choice between a 2-0 lead plus an injured Ohtani and a 0-2 hole plus a slumping Aaron Judge, you take Door No. 1.
The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani Problem Isn’t Terminal
To say that the Dodgers don’t need Ohtani would be to attempt to fool everybody, only to end up fooling nobody.
He’s a two-time MVP who’s fresh off chartering the 50-50 club, and among his inventory of hits in this postseason are some of the biggest the Dodgers have gotten. Heck, he just had one in Game 1.
It is plainly evident, however, that the Dodgers can win without Ohtani at the tip of the spear.
His double in the eighth inning on Friday is the only knock he’s produced in eight at-bats of the World Series, yet the Dodgers have outscored the Yankees 10-5.
Even before this point, the Dodgers got through the first two rounds of the playoffs despite only part-time stardom from Ohtani. He was 8-for-13 with two home runs with runners on base, but otherwise went 4-for-29 with the bases empty.
Take a step back and look at the big picture, and what you’ll see is a lineup that still has two other MVPs in Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, plus a couple of guys with 30-homer power (Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy) and what seems like a revolving door of candidates to provide clutch hits at any given moment.
Betts had his turn under the spotlight as he posted a 1.063 OPS in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Now it’s Freeman’s turn.
He spent the first two rounds of the playoffs doing his time as the core star whose injury didn’t hold the Dodgers back. Now it seems as if his bad right ankle is doing much better, as he followed his walk-off grand slam in Game 1 with a solo homer in Game 2.
Also going yard in Game 2 were Hernández and Tommy Edman. You’d expect as much from a Home Run Derby winner like the former, while the latter is now a .429 hitter since Game 1 of the NLCS.
It’s all too easy to keep dishing out gold stars. Max Muncy had a record-setting on-base streak earlier in the postseason. Enrique Hernández has as many postseason homers as Babe Ruth, and he had a huge triple in Game 1. Will Smith had a homer in Game 6 of the NLCS that effectively put the game out of reach.
Yet as much as offensive depth alone explains how the Dodgers have won the first two games of this series, they’ve also changed the narrative on the pitching side.
The Yankees were supposed to have the starting pitching edge, yet Jack Flaherty hung with Gerrit Cole in Game 1 and Yoshinobu Yamamoto just plain out-pitched Carlos Rodón in Game 2. The only hit allowed was a Juan Soto homer as he otherwise fanned four and walked two.
The Dodgers’ apparent strength in relief pitching is otherwise holding.
Their bullpen has a 2.45 ERA for the series, whereas the relative shallowness of New York’s pen was on full display when Aaron Boone thought it wise to call on Nestor Cortes to face Freeman with the game on the line in Game 1.
The Yankees’ Aaron Judge Problem May Be Terminal
It feels like Soto erasure to narrow the Yankees’ 2024 regular season down to a simple formula, but I will do it anyway.
When Judge hit, they won. When they didn’t, it was basically 50-50.
This is almost literally true when viewed through a home run lens. The Yankees went 39-14 on days when Judge went deep this season. On days he didn’t, they went 55-54.
As such, these splits represent a no-doubt-about-it, all-caps PROBLEM for the Yankees:
- Regular Season: 58 HR, 144 RBI, .322 AVG, .458 OBP, .701 SLG
- Postseason: 2 HR, 6 RBI, .150 AVG, .280 OBP, .325 SLG
The 6’7″, 282-pound Judge has especially been a non-factor in the World Series, producing only one hit with six strikeouts in nine at-bats. Worst of all, he made outs with ducks on the pond in the ninth inning in both Game 1 and Game 2.
Judge himself knows what he needs to do, which is simply take better swings:
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“I think it’s trying to make things happen instead of letting the game come to you. That’s what it really comes down to… I gotta start swinging at strikes.”
– Aaron Judge following the Yankees’ loss in Game 2 pic.twitter.com/YKODbyxfZl
If this is nothing else, it’s a welcome pivot from the tone that the 2022 AL MVP struck after Freeman kicked the heart of Yankee-dom in the butt on Friday.
He is nonetheless spot-on about his swings. His decisions have been rough, but his execution has been worse, especially on breaking stuff.
Soto and Giancarlo Stanton have done their darndest to cover up Judge’s struggles, combining for 26 hits and 10 home runs thus far.
Yet even with Soto and Stanton contributing a homer apiece in the first two games, it is ultimately impossible to separate Judge’s ongoing struggles from the fact that the Yankees are still stuck on 15 years since their last win in the Fall Classic.
This lineup just isn’t built to withstand a prolonged power outage from Judge, which mostly comes down to a shocking lack of impact outside of him, Soto and Stanton. The three of them combined for 53 percent of the team’s homers in the regular season. So far in the playoffs, they’re shouldering 80 percent of that particular load.
Rather than on Gleyber Torres, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Anthony Rizzo or Anthony Volpe, the Yankees don’t have much choice but to place their hopes of a comeback on Judge’s shoulders. They know he can handle it. He just has to actually do it.
History is already against the Yankees. This is the 93rd time a team has taken a 2-0 lead in a best-of-seven series. In 77 of the previous 92 instances, the club that took the 2-0 lead finished the job.
The longer Judge slumps, the more likely the Yankees are to be the 78th such victim rather than World Series champs for the 28th time.
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