AS AARON JUDGE PLUMMETS, CONGRATULATE THE DODGERS FOR A MAD BLOWOUT

An all-time slugger is harming his legacy, hitting 1 for 12 in the World Series and .140 in the postseason — with 20 strikeouts — as MVP Freddie Freeman exults after homering in three straight games

     Inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the archbishop pleaded for help. “If you want to light a candle for the Yankees — it’s not looking too good,” Timothy Cardinal Dolan said. The Feast of St. Jude was discussing the “patron saint of impossible causes,” and naturally enough, Aaron Judge continued a postseason collapse that now ranks among the most crushing and defeatist in sports.

     One more loss remains before his team chokes the World Series against the Dodgers, whose manager once overcame an 0-3 deficit in Yankee Stadium and will not blow a 3-0 lead this week. It’s more than appropriate to pinpoint Judge as a slugger who can hit 62 and 58 home runs in regular seasons and turn staggeringly soft when he must earn his $360 million. Pick the Aaron who has strangled away three games, Judge or Boone, and if you’d like to include Aaron Rodgers, choose another first name at a New York hospital.

     Use Freddie, as in Freeman, who hit a homer for the third consecutive game — fifth straight in his Series career — as he limps toward MVP honors. Judge is 1 for 12 with seven strikeouts and no RBIs, meaning he’s batting .140 in 12 postseason games and has struck out 20 times with two homers. In a career of 214 at-bats, he has struck out 86 times in 56 games and bats .196. He whiffs when runners are in scoring position. Who ever thought Freeman, who couldn’t walk last week, would blow him away?

     Judge entered Game 3 thinking, “It definitely eats at you. I’ve gotta step up and do my job and hunker down. Guys around me are doing their job. And I’m failing them, not backing them up. It’s all the same. You just run out of games when it’s here.”

     Falling short again, he was left to say Monday night, “You want to be getting the hits. You want to be doing your job, but I’m not doing my job right now. So I’ve got to pick it up. We can change everything with one game tomorrow.”

     October is an ordeal reducing a 6-foot-7, 282-pound man to a shrinking slaughterer of New York’s fantasies. He is the greatest power hitter in American League history, better than Babe Ruth. He has accomplished so much more without steroids than Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa ever did with steroids. It’s no fun pinpointing Judge’s hell, because he’s a good man who is devoted to charity and loves his sport.

     But is he Greg Norman, who gagged? Is he Roberto Duran, who said “no mas” in a prize fight? Is he the Atlanta Falcons, who blew a 28-3 lead in a Super Bowl? Is he the Cleveland baseball team, once known as the Indians, who allowed the Cubs to win their first championship in 108 years? When he fades away, so have the Yankees, who were quiet against starter Walker Buehler — who loves cold weather and might consider an East Coast city down the road — and a stellar bullpen. For the first time in months, Dave Roberts had no stress after a 4-2 win. Might the manager celebrate Tuesday night and launch the first Los Angeles parade since 1988, recalling 2020 as a pandemic year no one remembers? No Series team ever has recovered from an 0-3 hole, as you know.

     “I was kind of awful all year,” Buehler said. “Whatever fear I had has gone away.”

     “We wanted to strike early and quiet the crowd down,” Freeman said. “I don’t care how it happens. I want one more win.”

     Not that Judge is remotely positioned to help. Imagine the Yankees, in the most-watched Series in seven seasons, not showing up when they’re valued at a robust $7.6 billion. They will fail for the 15th straight season and finish second to the Dodgers, a wonderment somehow overcoming 2,342 days of players on the injured list. Shohei Ohtani led off while clutching his dislocated shoulder and will walk away from his first Series with a ring and possibly another surgeon.

     “I was holding onto myself when I was running to make sure I wouldn’t use the same shoulder if I were to slide,” Ohtani explained.

     Judge hasn’t appeared. Ohtani hasn’t appeared, allowing the training staff to fix his popped limb. The Dodgers, with their $5.5 billion valuation, will win a mushy meeting of massive franchises and let southern California pretend New York doesn’t exist.

     We watched Judge struggle as he wore an outline of Michael Jordan’s Jumpman on his glove. He plays in the wrong city to lose his way throughout October, when a six-month crasher is bashed. He swings and misses too often. His boyhood idol in northern California, Bonds, struggled mightily in postseasons until he let loose in 2002, when he had eight homers and 27 walks. Someday, maybe Judge will crackle.

     Said Boone, perplexed as the manager: “He’s as good as I’ve ever seen at handling big-league life. He’s going to break out at some point. And moving forward in his career, he’s going to have great series. There’s no doubt in my mind. … Come ready to go tomorrow. He’s Aaron Judge, and just continue to work and hopefully get on time and connect on some.”

     When Judge won a Player of the Year award from fellow major-leaguers, Ohtani said Monday, “Every year he has a great historical season. He gives me inspiration and I enjoy watching him play. I'm thankful that he is bringing excitement to the league. I'm very thankful that I can watch him play.” Inspiration? It doesn’t exist watching him walk to the dugout, again and again.

     “Hopefully, we can go be this amazing story and shock the world,” Boone said. “But right now, it’s about trying to grab a game, and force another one, and then on from there. But we’ve got to grab one first.”

     Said Roberts, who helped Boston overcome an 0-3 deficit in 2004 in the ALCS: “Don’t talk about that. Wrong guy. Way too early. I don’t want to divulge any secrets, but from the other side, I just think we have to stay focused, stay urgent.”

     More than 15 million people have watched the Series in Japan. When coupled with the 14.5 million watching in America, Roberts isn’t far off when he says, “I still stand by the fact that more eyeballs are going to be watching this World Series than any other series in history.” At the moment, the audience is bored. That’s how dominant Freeman and the pitchers have been for the Dodgers, who weeks ago had so many injuries that we wondered how they’d piece together a staff. Think about the season. Freeman was out. Mookie Betts was out. Max Muncy was out. Clayton Kershaw and Tyler Glasnow? Long gone.

     Ohtani didn’t have to play, but he did. When he stayed home late Saturday night for testing, he texted his teammates as they headed to the airport. “The text just literally said, ‘I can play,’ ’’ Muncy said. “We all just put it to the side at that moment. We all said, ‘All right, he’s got us. We’ll be ready for him in the lineup.’ ’’ The Japanese enjoy referring to Ohtani as “the perfect person” — or, “kanpeki no hito.” He’s still human, even as their most popular celebrity ever.

     Said Roberts, who wasn’t in the communicative mix: “Would have been helpful if I was on that thread. I would have slept better.”

     He will sleep fine until the last out is recorded. Perhaps Aaron Judge will strike out. The archbishop is moving on to other priorities.

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     Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.