World Series 2024: Nestor Cortes Jr., Yankees bullpen fail to deliver final three outs in Game 1 loss to Dodgers

LOS ANGELES — As Yankees reliever Jake Cousins strolled to the mound for the bottom of the 10th inning, a simple yet delicate task lay before him: Retire the side in order against the bottom-third of the Dodgers lineup — leaving Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman stuck watching — and Game 1 of the World Series would belong to New York.

If one of Will Smith, Gavin Lux or Tommy Edman were to reach base, the entire complexion of the ballgame would change. With Ohtani looming in the leadoff spot, Cousins was sure to be pulled should the soon-to-be NL MVP come to the plate. As for who would enter from New York’s bullpen to face Ohtani in that scenario? That was a question manager Aaron Boone surely did not want to have to answer.

Six days earlier, Cousins had been brilliant in ALCS Game 5, striking out four of the five batters he faced in the later stages of a tie game the Yankees would go on to win to clinch the American League pennant. Cousins is one of several Yankees reliever reclamation projects who has gradually earned Boone’s trust in high-leverage spots, and with go-to guys Clay Holmes, Tommy Kahnle and Luke Weaver having already pitched in regulation, it was Cousins — with just one career save to his name — who got the ball with the chance to close out Game 1.

With three more outs, the Yankees would claim a narrow road victory in a game that featured ace Gerrit Cole delivering six stellar innings of one-run ball and yet another spectacular blast from October superhero Giancarlo Stanton that had given New York a lead back in the sixth inning. Jazz Chisholm Jr., coming off an awfully quiet ALCS, had recaptured the lead for the Yankees with a leadoff single and some aggressive baserunning to manufacture a run in the top of the 10th. Cole and Stanton aside, it hadn’t been the smoothest ride for New York to get to the bottom of the 10th with a lead — repeated failures with runners in scoring position and a defensive miscue from Gleyber Torres lingered as the game progressed — but with just three more outs, all would be forgotten.

Smith flew out to right for a harmless first out, but Lux followed with a five-pitch walk. For as effective as Cousins has been as a Yankee, he’s prone to lose the zone with relative frequency, particularly against left-handed batters, and that wildness resurfaced at a brutally inopportune time. Suddenly, an Ohtani plate appearance was imminent, barring Edman grounding into a double play. But when Edman hit a hard grounder up the middle that second baseman Oswaldo Cabrera was unable to corral in time to record any outs, the threat of far more than just Ohtani emerged for New York. With just one out, Betts and Freeman grabbed their bats and readied to hit in the event that Ohtani couldn’t come through.

But first, that dreaded question the Yankees would have preferred be left unaddressed: Who would face Ohtani?

Boone had two lefties warming to choose from: Nestor Cortes Jr. and Tim Hill. Hill, a journeyman like Cousins, has found a home in the Yankees bullpen as a side-winding southpaw who has consistently flummoxed opposing batters with his unique arm angle and has performed well in seven appearances this October. Cortes represents a much more familiar face — a former All-Star who has become a staple of New York’s pitching staff in recent years — but a much bigger unknown at this point in time. He had not pitched since Sept. 18 after suffering an elbow flexor strain but had been rehabbing over the past month and built himself up to the point that New York considered him worth adding to the World Series roster, especially as a potential counter for the bevy of dangerous lefty bats in the L.A. lineup.

And with two of those lefty sluggers in Ohtani and Freeman scheduled to hit with the game on the line, Boone felt confident that Cortes was the right call.

“Just liked the matchup,” he said after his team’s 6-3 loss. “The reality is he’s been throwing the ball really well the last few weeks as he’s gotten ready for this. I knew with one out there, it would be tough to double up Shohei if Tim Hill gets him on the ground, and then Mookie behind him is a tough matchup there. So felt convicted with Nestor in that spot.”

And so, in trotted Cortes for what was not only the highest leverage assignment of his major-league career but also as daunting of a situation as a reliever could possibly be brought into: a trio of MVPs with two more outs still to get.

As Cortes warmed up, the volume at Dodger Stadium achieved a new high for the evening, as the announced crowd of 52,394 eagerly awaited the potential for an Ohtani World Series walk-off. But the anticipation for such a moment was abruptly derailed when Ohtani sent Cortes’ first pitch slicing down the left-field line, only to watch Alex Verdugo make an outstanding grab in foul territory, crashing over the wall and into the stands for a shocking second out.

Because Verdugo toppled out of play, the runners were allowed to advance to second and third. This left first base open, and so Boone opted to put Betts on to set up the left-on-left matchup for Cortes vs. Freeman, albeit with the bases loaded and Chavez Ravine ready to absolutely explode.

The expected Ohtani and/or Betts moments might have been for naught, but that’s why the Dodgers keep acquiring MVPs. It was Freeman’s turn this time.

Once again, Cortes’ first pitch — a fastball that catcher Austin Wells wanted up and in but that leaked downward into Freeman’s nitro zone — was swung at with bad intentions. And this time, it had no chance of being caught by anyone other than the mob of ecstatic Dodgers fans that had packed the right-field pavilion. Roughly seven minutes after Cortes had entered in hopes of finalizing a Yankees Game 1 victory, Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history. Life comes at you fast in October.

A Yankees bullpen that did not allow an earned run across 15 2/3 innings in the ALDS against the Royals had begun to show cracks against the Guardians in the ALCS but still managed to record the biggest outs in the biggest moments en route to a series victory in just five games. The Dodgers, though, represent a completely different beast for New York’s bullpen to tame. And in a series opener in Los Angeles in which Boone was seemingly in position to deploy a fully rested relief corps — plus an apparent reinforcement in Cortes — in a fairly favorable sequence, the Yankees failed to record enough outs to secure a victory.

This is the second time this month that the Yankees have been on the losing side of an absolute October classic. Their lone loss in the ALCS against Cleveland came in particularly, if similarly enthralling, fashion in Game 3, a contest in which New York also grabbed a late lead only to squander it by surrendering a walk-off home run. But as brutal as it was in the moment, it was relatively easy — and logical — for New York to maintain a sense of confidence following that heartbreaking loss in Cleveland. The Yankees still felt firmly in control of the series and were able to swiftly flush the result and move on with a calm that was validated when they closed out the series over the next two days.

Such a luxury does not exist as things stand in Los Angeles, as the Yankees are now down in a series for the first time this October. If you didn’t know exactly how it unfolded, the Yankees dropping Game 1 in Los Angeles would be a wholly reasonable outcome to accept at the outset of the series. But the sequence of events and combination of poor performances that led to New York’s dramatic loss on Friday were a sobering reminder of how tough its World Series opponent is — and how much better the Yankees will have to play and pitch if they are to keep pace with Los Angeles.