The Red Sox have had some historic breakdowns during their existence, but the collapse and choke of the Yankees last night in the World Series was truly a thing to behold.

After staving off a sweep on Tuesday, the Yankees seemed poised to send the series back to Los Angeles for Game 6 on Friday when they choked and/or collapsed – or both – in the middle innings of Game 5. Holding a 5-0 lead and with Gerrit Cole seemingly in complete control of the game, New York disintegrated in historic form with series of errors and mental mistakes that fueled a five-run Los Angeles rally that tied the score.

The Yankees then went ahead in the sixth inning to reclaim the lead, 6-5, before the Dodgers scored twice more in the top of the eighth, an inning that featured more Yankees mistakes.

Nonetheless, let there be no doubt that the Yankees lost the game in the fifth, something that surprised few Yankees fans who witnessed the team’s fundamental breakdowns on defense and the basepaths during the regular season and playoffs.

For further background, know that Yankees starter Cole had thrown just 49 pitches and had yet to allow a hit when he took the mound for the fifth. He subsequently allowed a leadoff single by former Red Sox outfielder and infielder Enrique Hernandez (more on him shortly) before the wheels on the bus went round and round … and then spun off in astonishing fashion.

Here is a breakdown of the … er …breakdown, along with a couple of subtle observations on the shrewd play of Hernandez, who has proven to be a heady – albeit flawed – player over his career:

• Judge drops the ball

  Well, the drop is obvious. As analyst John Smoltz correctly pointed out, Judge checks the base runner (Hernandez) and takes his eyes off the ball just before it reaches his glove, resulting in an inexcusably sloppy mistake that triggers the Dodgers rally. As a result, following Hernandez’ leadoff single, Los Angeles has runners at first and second with nodbody out. The underrated part of the play? No, it’s not Hernandez’ hustle. It’s that he never takes his eyes off the play. Many runners often turn away and run back to the bag when they see this play developing – and Hernandez doesn’t. As a result, he can react immediately to the drop and narrowly beat Judge’s throw to second for an attempted forceout. One fine thing: Judge’s throw isn’t particularly good.

• Volpe throws wild

  With nobody out and runners now at first and second, Dodgers catcher Will Smith pulls a grounder into the hole between third base and shortstop. Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe ranges to his right and makes the correct choice – a forceout at third – but rushes the throw and spikes it offline and at the feet of third baseman Jazz Chisholm. As a result, everyone is safe and the bases are loaded with nobody out. Once again, Hernandez makes a very subtle but smart move here. If you watch the replays, you’ll notice that Hernandez rounds his approach to the bag and creates  a tougher angle for Volpe to make his throw. Did it affect the throw? Did Volpe rush more than he already was? Whatever the case, for the Yankees, the dam is about to burst. One final thought: Derek Jeter would have made this play, but we all know that. Of course, there is no way to really know that. But he would have.

• Cole’s brain locks

  With the bases loaded and nobody out, Cole now does the hard part. He strikes out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani on eight pitches, touching 99 on the radar gun. (He got Ohtani with a nasty slider.) Facing Mookie Betts, Cole then entices a squibbed grounder to the right side. The ball has some unusual spin that leads to it actually break away from the first base bag, something Cole later said baited him to give up on the play. That’s right, Cole didn’t cover first. Ugh. Quick note here: Again, Cole had thrown just 49 pitches through the first four innings. He threw 38 in the fifth alone. Beyond the runs that would score in the inning, Cole also had to leave the game after 6.2 innings and 108 pitches. Had the Yankees made it through the fifth allowing even only two or three runs … could Cole have gone a little deeper? Might this have affected how manager Aaron Boone employed his bullpen? Would the outcome have been different? We’ll never now. But before we go, one final point about the Yankees…

• The roster construction remains an issue

  As surehanded as Judge generally is – he didn’t make a single error in center field during the regular season – the fact that he’s in center field at all is an indictment on the Yankees and general manager Brian Cashman. While the Yankees addressed some of their roster concerns during the offseason – they acquired both the left-handed-hitting Juan Soto and lefty Alex Verdugo in trades to diversify their lineup – the defense leaves something to be desired. And while there is obviously no way of knowing if the following play could have turned out differently, suffice it to say that Judge has limited range in the outfield. Why did that matter? On the game tying hit (below), Teoscar Hernandez belted a ball to deep left center that short-hopped the wall. Judge really had no chance. But if the Yankees had a real center fielder – someone with Ceddanne Raffaela’s speed and range, for instance – could the play have turned out differently? It’s hard to say. But among 32 major leaguers players who spent at least 500 innings in center fielder this year, Judge ranked 29th in defensive runs saved and 30th in outs above average. Again, he had no chance to get to this:

   

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