The Los Angeles Dodgers secured their eighth World Series championship in franchise history earlier this week by following their scouting report that proved to be more than accurate.
The Dodgers' plan? Let the New York Yankees get in their own way.
New York Post's Joel Sherman wrote Thursday that the Dodgers considered New York to be the worst-positioned outfield in baseball heading into the World Series. But that's not all.
"What the Dodgers told their players in scouting meetings was the Yankees were talent over fundamentals," Sherman wrote. "That if you run the bases with purpose and aggression, the Yankees will self-inflict harm as was exposed by [Mookie] Betts, Tommy Edman, Freddie Freeman, etc. That the value was very high to put the ball in play to make the Yankees execute. They mentioned that the Yankees were ... the majors’ worst base-running team by every metric."
All of those words rang true in the World Series.
In Game 1, for example, Shohei Ohtani took third base on an error credited to Juan Soto for a bad throw into second base. The next batter, Mookie Betts, hit a sacrifice fly to center field to bring home Ohtani and tie the game 2–2. The Dodgers eventually won on Freddie Freeman's walk-off grand slam.
In Game 3, the Yankees' poor base running was on display when the not-so-speedy Giancarlo Stanton was thrown out at the plate by Teoscar Hernandez. In Game 4, rookie phenom Anthony Volpe failed to score from second base on a double off the wall.
The Yankees' mistakes really came back to haunt them in the fifth inning of Game 5. In one of the worst defensive frames in World Series history, the Yankees made three errors and allowed five runs—all unearned—to score with two outs. Aaron Judge missed a can of corn in center field, Anthony Volpe misfired a throw to third base and starting pitcher Gerrit Cole forgot to cover first base on a routine ground ball to Anthony Rizzo that should've ended the inning before a single run was scored.
The Dodgers were right: The Yankees did get in their own way, paving a path to Los Angeles hosting a championship parade at Gloria Molina Grand Park on Friday.
New York's biggest priority this offseason will be to retain superstar Juan Soto, the biggest name on the free-agent market. But another top priority should be manager Aaron Boone's squad getting back to the fundamentals that cost them a chance at a World Series title.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dodgers' Simple Plan on Scouting Report to Beat Yankees in World Series Rang True.
