The Yankees were left to rue the disastrous 5th inning that allowed the Dodgers to return to Game 5 of the World Series

BRONX, NY – Two mistakes and one misinterpretation were enough to turn the New York Yankees' 5-0 lead into smoke in Game 5 of the World Series, and with it their championship hopes.

Home runs from Aaron Judge, Jazz Chisholm and Giancarlo Stanton put the Yankees in good shape in Game 5 and Gerrit Cole hit the Los Angeles Dodgers in four innings. It was all but certain that New York would become the first team in MLB history to force a Game 6 after losing the first three games of a World Series. But then the fifth round came and in no time the game was tied after numerous mishaps and mistakes.

“It’s baseball. It’s just a tough ending,” Cole said. “It's a little hard to understand, but at the same time I felt like we came into the dugout and were like, 'Wow.'” But we're still in the ballgame. In this situation, they did a great job on a few pitches and put the ball in play. And in baseball, when you put the ball in play, sometimes you get rewarded for it. They were so relentless in their approach. They won a lot of pitches this inning.

Enrique Hernandez led off with a single, negating the early no-hit request. Tommy Edman threw a softliner up the middle for Judge, a play he makes 100 out of 100 times. But somehow his glove failed to put runners on first and second with no outs.

“It comes back to me,” Judge said. “If I make this play, the other two probably won’t happen.”

Will Smith was denied by Anthony Volpe, who tried to get the momentum on third down, but his throw bounced so badly that Chisholm couldn't catch it.

“The play on Volpe, the obvious right play on third down, a little jump over there on third down, didn't complete the play,” manager Aaron Boone said.

With the bases loaded and no outs, Gerrit Cole singled to strike out Gavin Lux and Shohei Ohtani. He then persuaded Mookie Betts to send a ball to first, which was placed deeper behind the ball by Anthony Volpe.

Cole took a bad angle and thought he could play the ball and couldn't cover it first. With Rizzo too far from the ball, Betts was safe and the Dodgers scored their first run of the night.

“My angle should have been a little more aggressive toward first base to give me a chance to get further to the bag if I didn't get it,” Cole said. “But I just didn’t read the ball.”

Freddie Freeman delivered a two-run single and Teoscar Hernandez tied the game with a double. Just like that, back to the beginning.

“If you give a team like the Dodgers three extra outs, they’re going to capitalize on it,” Judge said. “The fifth inning hurt us there. Even though we were able to defend ourselves… you can’t give a team like that extra outs.”

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The Yankees actually fought back. They were back in the lead within an inning after Stanton's sacrifice fly in the sixth inning. But Cole retired with two outs in the seventh, and in the eighth the Dodgers managed to score two runs on sacrifice flies to retake the lead they would hold to win their eighth-ever World Series title.

“We just didn’t get the job done,” Judge said. “Just a few mistakes along the way. We didn’t finish it.”

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