“Felt convicted with Nestor in that spot,” said Yankees manager Aaron Boone after World Series Game 1, explaining his decision to summon Nestor Cortes to face the Dodgers’ MVP trio of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman with a 3-2 lead, one out, and the tying and winning runs on first and second, respectively, in the bottom of the 10th.
By “felt convicted,” Boone meant he felt convinced or had conviction. But the word he went with—unlike the lefty reliever he went with—was apt. By bringing in Cortes, Boone essentially sentenced himself to being the goat of the game, in the old-school, Charlie Brown sense. I’m not here to try to overturn that conviction. I’ve defended Boone before, but I’ve got nothing now.
Mostly, we make too much of managerial moves, both bad and good. Boone didn’t directly lose the game by bringing in Cortes; he didn’t throw the pitch that Freeman deposited deep in the right-field seats for the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history. Many things went right and wrong for the Yankees before Boone put his left arm up—not out—to call for Cortes instead of side-arming southpaw Tim Hill, who was warming up alongside Cortes. The wrong move might have worked, just as the correct call could have yielded the wrong result: Cortes could have gotten out of the jam, and if Hill had been called upon, he could have given up the game-winner too. But Boone, embodying the “two buttons” meme, pressed the wrong one, and players’ physical failures are easier to forgive than managers’ unforced mental missteps.
Before Game 1, Boone addressed how he would use Cortes in the series, with the 29-year-old returning to the roster after missing more than a month with a flexor strain in his elbow. “Ultimately I want to protect him and make sure he’s in a good spot,” the skipper said. Boone was referring more to Cortes’s recovery time between outings than to when the rusty lefty would be used in any given game, but by handing him the ball at that make-or-break moment, Boone did the opposite of his stated intention.
Back in 2018, I second-guessed second-guessing, pointing out that teams have much more information than the average (or even expert) fan. When Boone said he “just liked the matchup” and acknowledged that Cortes’s history against Ohtani (2-for-12, with one strikeout) had “a little bit” to do with that, perhaps he had more on his mind. (If you’re reading entrails at home, Freeman was 1-for-3 with a double off Cortes before the bomb on Friday; he’s 3-for-7 with a homer off Hill, and Ohtani is 1-for-4 with a walk.) There may well be a hitter vs. pitcher projection on Aaron Boone’s iPad, supplied by the front office and based on sound data—repertoires, release points, swing paths—that says Cortes is typically a better bet than Hill against Ohtani and Freeman.
But such projections probably can’t account for the fact that Cortes hadn’t pitched in a game since September 18; that the strain that sidelined him might still be in the back of his mind (“It’s as good as it could be,” Cortes said on Tuesday); or that his relief appearance on September 7—more of a tandem-starter arrangement than a situational use—was the only one he’s made since he switched to starting midway through 2021. I’d have had no problem with Boone breaking the glass protecting Cortes in the event of a low-leverage tune-up opportunity, an unexpectedly early exit by a starter, or a longer game in which safer alternatives were exhausted. But to get two tough outs, escape a jam, and save the game, Cortes should’ve been the lefty of last resort.
Joe Sheehan comped Boone’s blunder to ex-Cardinals skipper Mike Matheny’s decision to bring in similarly long-dormant starter Michael Wacha in Game 5 of the 2014 NLCS—a move so inexplicable that some of my longtime podcast listeners still cite it as a time when I, normally a mild-mannered host, got mad. Unlike Matheny (or Joe Torre in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, when he went with Jeff Weaver in extras instead of Mariano Rivera), Boone didn’t cite the old bromide about bringing in closers in tie games on the road—this wasn’t a tie game, and Boone had already used closer Luke Weaver in a vain attempt to prevent L.A. from tying the game in the eighth—but his choice was almost as ill-advised.
Hill, whose mustache, lined face, and baggy uniform make him look like a Field of Dreams–esque relic of an earlier age, isn’t exactly a longtime relief ace; in June, he was released by one of the worst teams of all time. But the 34-year-old was effective for the Yankees down the stretch, recording a 2.05 ERA and a 3.62 FIP in 35 games and 44 innings, and then allowing only one earned run in 5 2/3 innings across seven ALDS and ALCS appearances. Hill is the furthest thing from a strikeout artist—in fact, he had the second-lowest K rate of any pitcher with at least 50 innings pitched this year—but no one had a higher ground ball rate than his 68.2 percent, and this was a double-play situation (albeit not an ideal one, with the speedy Ohtani up). Admittedly, on-deck batter Betts would’ve been a bad draw for Hill, but at least Hill has been seen in a major league game since the start of fall.
Yet Boone bypassed both Hill—who later sounded snippy about being snubbed—and another midseason addition, Tim Mayza (a lefty specialist who’s held southpaws to a .215/.266/.307 line in his six-year career), in favor of the longer-tenured Cortes. “He’s been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he’s gotten ready for this,” Boone said of Cortes after the game. I don’t doubt that he did look good, in bullpen sessions and batting practice. But there’s a big difference between throwing to teammates in an empty Yankee Stadium and facing a few of baseball’s best hitters in a sold-out Dodger Stadium, with 52,000-plus fans sniffing a series lead.
“Given that the Dodgers were in worse shape than the Yankees, they’ve probably benefited more from the break between series,” I wrote before the game. The off days that followed the championship series, I noted, seemed likely to aid the Dodgers in a few ways: by resetting their hard-worked pen, by providing time for reinforcements (Alex Vesia, Brusdar Graterol, Miguel Rojas) to arrive, and by giving banged-up batters Gavin Lux and Freddie Freeman an opportunity to heal. As anticipated, the time off helped Freeman, who’d hobbled through the first two rounds without an extra-base hit. With a misplayed triple in Friday’s first inning, his singles-hitting days were done. (Freeman’s eventual walk-off blast was widely likened to the limping Kirk Gibson’s Game 1 winner in the 1988 series, but Freeman was no longer moving as gingerly as he had been, a bad sign for the Yankees.)
What I didn’t anticipate was that the return of Cortes would work in L.A.’s favor by dangling a dangerous option in front of Boone. Boone and the Dodgers’ Dave Roberts have been frequent targets of October critiques, but both had avoided obvious, costly miscues this month. In part, that may have been because they had fewer pitfalls in their paths. The Royals’ and Guardians’ lackluster lineups didn’t present the Yankees’ manager with many Kobayashi Maru matchup dilemmas, and Roberts, who has sometimes courted trouble by using starting pitchers in relief, had too few starters at his disposal to fill out a rotation, let alone to ask an ace to moonlight in relief. But the heart of the Dodgers order presented a formidable minefield for Boone, and Cortes was the worst possible minesweeper.
Cortes didn’t even have a chance to throw a sweeper. “I’m going to have to bring out the kitchen sink on [Ohtani],” Cortes said earlier in the week. “And not only him, but all the other lefties that they have in that lineup.” But the disciplined Dodgers didn’t make Cortes work: He threw just two pitches, both four-seam fastballs between 92 and 93 miles per hour. The first was an almost middle-middle pitch that Ohtani could have crushed but instead popped out on, thanks to an incredible catch by left fielder Alex Verdugo, who fell into the stands as he snagged it (thereby allowing the runners to tag up and advance, opening up first base for a free pass for Betts). The second, over the inner third of the plate, was lower than Cortes and catcher Austin Wells wanted it, allowing Freeman to turn on and crush it for a game-ending dinger. (Sorry, not sorry, AP Stylebook.)
The homer vindicated Freeman’s efforts to play through his injury, capping off a successful season that’s been both physically and emotionally painful for the first baseman and father. (“In my eyes, he’s a superhero, really, honestly, and truly,” said Dodgers reliever Anthony Banda.) It’s unfortunate that Freeman’s clutch triumph—and Boone’s tactical miscalculation—may make Cortes’s season end on a nasty note. The 2022 All-Star, who’ll reach free agency after next season, has been a great find for New York. To pitch in the playoffs, he prioritized the team over his health and his earnings, against the advice of some family and friends. October baseball, he said after the game, “is what the dream is made of.” And in a zero-sum sport, Dodgers dreams mean Yankees nightmares.
Game 1 had everything: what passes for a pitcher’s duel in the bullpen-centric 2024 postseason, between Gerrit Cole and Jack Flaherty; defensive gems and defensive mistakes; multiple lead changes; and big stars hitting big homers for both teams. (ALCS MVP Giancarlo Stanton extended his heroics with a titanic two-run jack in the sixth that gave the Yankees their first lead.) It was the latest classic contest in an indelible October, one whose enticing matchups have mostly delivered great games. All this month was missing was a glaring, signature mistake by a manager. On the whole, I’d rather that the games be about the players than the older dudes who weirdly wear uniforms in the dugout. But managerial self-sabotage, and the ensuing fan frustration, is an important part of playoff lore too, and now that October box has been checked. “It’s definitely going to be a tough task,” Cortes said pregame, when he was asked about facing Ohtani or Freeman. But Boone made it tougher.
Boone’s wasn’t the sole screwup on the Yankees’ side. Aaron Judge continued to come up short at the plate. Juan Soto’s awkward route on Kiké Hernández’s fifth-inning liner allowed Hernández to reach third, putting him in position to score the first run of the game on Will Smith’s sacrifice fly. In the sixth, third-base coach Luis Rojas flashed a questionable stop sign instead of sending Jazz Chisholm Jr. home on a grounder by Wells. In the eighth, Soto and Gleyber Torres combined to give Shohei Ohtani an extra base or two on a hard-hit ball off the wall, putting Ohtani on third and enabling a second sac fly, from Betts. And in the 10th, Oswaldo Cabrera couldn’t corral Tommy Edman’s grounder, resulting in the single that set up Boone’s call to Cortes. But Boone will wear this loss, unless and until four more victories cleanse the stain. No error Boone could make as a manager will ever redefine “the Aaron Boone game” in the minds of Yankees fans. But if the Bombers take three more Ls in this series, Game 1 may go down as the other Aaron Boone game.
“That’s as good as it gets right there,” Freeman said in the victory glow. For Boone, that’s about as bad as it gets—except for the fact that there’s a lot of life left in the Yankees, and this series, with several more games to go.
