WHERE ARE JUDGE AND OHTANI AS THE YANKEES AND DODGERS EYE THE WORLD SERIES?
Baseball needs superstardom and power-crushing to regain America’s consciousness, and while the Mets feature Lindor and Vientos as the Yankees launch Stanton and Soto, the mauling studs are struggling
In a suite above Yankee Stadium, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce held hands and ate popcorn. It was the top of the ninth inning Monday night. They weren’t leaving even if both were chilly, with Swift in a black coat and Kelce in a dark jacket. They didn’t care about Aaron Judge and how he continues to stumble in baseball’s postseason, hitting .204 with 72 strikeouts in 49 career games with only two home runs and four RBIs in his last 64 plate appearances.
That’s because the Yankees won Game 1 of the American League championship series and likely are off to the World Series, in spite of an evidently impeached Judge. They have Giancarlo Stanton and Juan Soto. So be it.
“He’s going to get more opportunities,” said manager Aaron Boone, claiming a few walks have contributed to the power outage. “I’ll continue to place my bets on him.”
On the West Coast, earlier in the day, Magic Johnson and Jason Bateman were seen leaving the suite level of the stadium after the eighth inning. Johnson is a part-owner of the Dodgers. Bateman introduced the home lineup before Game 2 of the National League championship series. Neither bothered to stick around and watch Shohei Ohtani, which prompted someone to say, “Hey, it’s Los Angeles.”
Rather, the Dodgers botched a historic scoreless-innings performance amid strange offensive inconsistencies. That includes Ohtani, who is 0-for-19 with the bases empty in his first postseason and has only one homer and five RBIs with 12 strikeouts in 32 plate appearances. They watched the New York Mets continue to ionize Francisco Lindor and Mark Vientos, who hit a grand slam when Lindor was intentionally walked.
“I use it as motivation,’’ Vientos said. “I’m like, all right, you want me up there, I’m going to show you.”
“That’s who he is,” Lindor said. “I’m glad he took it personal.”
Every day and every night, we see Judge and Ohtani bashing mighty shots on TV. This is Fox Sports’ way of shilling their potential presence for a World Series that still might involve both. We’ll definitely be better as a populace if they are crushing pitches, but at the moment, there is considerable concern in New York that Judge is stuck in a years-long hex while Ohtani is dealing with an oddballish mess in Los Angeles. He manages to succeed with runners in scoring position, but he often hits with no one on base as the leadoff man. Should Dave Roberts re-insert Ohtani as the No. 2 batter and lead off with Mookie Betts? His stolen bases remain at zero, despite his 59 in the regular season.
“I want Shohei to get five at-bats a game,” the manager said after a 7-3 loss to the Mets. “I think he’s our best hitter, and I want him up there five times.”
He should look at the data and examine why Ohtani performs with baserunners, an element helped by Betts. Besides, opponents who gagged on retiring Ohtani during his 54-homer season are wondering if he’s slowing down. “He's one of the best hitters in the league, but I've got really good stuff,” Mets reliever Edwin Diaz said. “I just go after him. Hit the ball, if you get to two strikes, I will make you chase.” It’s exactly what Padres manager Mike Shildt said about Ohtani, before San Diego batters succumbed to pitching that kept opponents without runs for 33 consecutive innings.
“He’s clearly a very exceptional player, but I believe in our guys too. We feel confident that we have the ability to get Ohtani out,” Shildt said.
Is it necessary to point out that Ohtani makes $700 million and Judge makes $360 million? Aren’t they bicoastal monsters who can attract larger numbers of a growing audience to the Series? Ohtani is the biggest star, with his New Balance advertisement in heavy rotation — “Hey, hey, hey, what you got to say?” But Judge is immense as well, at 6 feet 7, and who wouldn’t want to see them duel in an outrageous derby?
Right now, Lindor is larger in the NL series. He hit a leadoff homer in Game 2 and set up Vientos after his grand slam pushed the Mets past Philadelphia.
And right now, Stanton and Soto are securing eyeballs with colossal homers for the Yankees, who won 5-2 over Cleveland.
At any moment, Ohtani could hit three home runs and drive in 10 runs as he did late in the regular season. And Judge could return as the mauler who led the majors with 58 homers, 144 RBIs, a .458 on-base percentage, a .701 slugging percentage, 133 walks and a WAR of 10.8.
Or, both could fade.
Never doubt their passion. Ohtani wasted six years in Anaheim and doesn’t want a seventh to end in the NLCS. He has taken on umpires and grew disgusted Monday when a Mets coach interrupted his path while walk-journeying to first base. “Playing a regular-season game and playing a playoff game is different,” he said. “And I think a lot of players end up playing and showing their emotions. So I feel like I'm part of that.”
Said Roberts: “I think he does realize he's the best player on the planet. I do think that he's become, I think, who he intrinsically is. He's very isolated, very quiet and stays to himself, private. But he’s a crazy-good competitor. This guy is not just a robot. He's a real person who has emotions.”
Judge? He’s obsessed with winning a title after too many years of trying in the Bronx. “There's a lot of unfinished business, man,” he said days ago. “It drives me crazy in the offseason. During the season I try not to think about it. I try to take it day by day. But every year that we come up short, the offseason isn't that fun.
“There's no other way to put it. Ever since I've been a Yankee, getting drafted in 2013, all that was ever engrained in my head or what we were taught is win in New York. Be a winner. Championship mindset. It's just always been the way I was raised, even before I got here it was: If you don't win, what's the point?”
In the Super Bowl, we’ve awaited Patrick Mahomes and Tom Brady. In the NBA Finals, we’ve awaited Steph Curry and LeBron James. We want Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge later this month, returning America’s consciousness to baseball.
We don’t have either.
Yet.
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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.